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887 articles

Charles Mingus: Charlie Mingus: Jazz Man Is Changing His Beat

Report and Interview by Robert Shelton, The New York Times, 27 August 1962

Charlie Mingus at Work on Story of His Hard Times Bassist Is Planning to Leave U.S. and Write Symphony ...

The Beatles, John Lennon: A Beatle In His Own Write!

Report by Peter Jones, Record Mirror, 4 April 1964

John Lennon Talks About His New Book ...

Elvis Presley: David Griffiths recalls Elvis' days as the King of Western Bop

Retrospective by David Griffiths, Record Mirror, 5 June 1965

PARDON US while we do a little boasting but, after all, it IS the RM's birthday and we HAVE got something to celebrate. For we ...

Crawdaddy: Get Off Of My Cloud!

Comment by Paul Williams, Crawdaddy!, 7 February 1966

YOU ARE looking at the first issue of amagazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy will feature neither pin-ups nor news-briefs; the specialty of this ...

Our Nancy's Life Abroad — with Those British Pop Stars

Profile and Interview by Loraine Alterman, Detroit Free Press, 13 February 1966

The telegram came from Interpop. It read "ARRIVING IN DETROIT FROM LONDON ON PANAM FLIGHT 57 TUESDAY 3:20 PM IS YOUNG LADY OF POSSIBLE INTEREST ...

The Astronauts, The Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, The Rolling Stones: One Day On The Beat

Report by Carol Deck, KRLA Beat, 9 April 1966

SO YOU'D like to be a BEAT reporter, huh? So you think we lead an interesting exciting life full of nothing but fun and games ...

Charles Keil: Urban Blues (The University Of Chicago Press)

Book Review by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 22 October 1966

THE BLUES AS AN URBAN NEGRO CULTURE ...

Booker T & The MGs, Arthur Conley, Eddie Floyd, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas: R.M. Stax Show Review Row — Label Manager Replies To Criticism

Readers' Letters by uncredited writer, Record Mirror, 1 April 1967

RECORD MIRROR'S Norman Jopling went to the very first performance of the "Hit The Road Stax" tour in Britain — first house at Finsbury Park. ...

The Bloodless Battle Of The Badge: The Press at Monterey Pop

Report by Derek Taylor, World Countdown News, July 1967

THE CLEAN YOUNG man at the window said he was from the Los Angeles Times and there was nothing in his face to say he ...

The Mothers Of Invention: Mother's Rites: Freak Out/Absolutely Free

Review by Geoffrey Cannon, The Listener, 19 October 1967

2012 NOTE: Here below is the second column I wrote for The Listener in late 1967. It was the first of a number I ...

Nico, The Velvet Underground: Andy Warhol: A Mirror Of American Death

Essay by Geoffrey Cannon, New Society, 13 June 1968

2012 note: Cometh the hour... Paul Barker, the second and last editor of the UK weekly journal New Society, was once asked to speak on ...

The Rolling Stones: How I Survived Beggar's Banquet

Report by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 14 December 1968

THAT custard pies would one day be hurled by the Rolling Stones at the gentlemen of the press was fairly inevitable. ...

Nico, The Velvet Underground: Letter to a Mystified Man

Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 28 January 1969

DEAR Mr Davey — You write a neat letter, and I smiled, too. Last week you wrote to the editor of the Guardian (January 20). "If you ...

The Rolling Stones: Rolling Stone Magazine: Ripples from the Stone

Report by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 25 March 1969

FEW REVIEWS can make a first-rank artist doubt his ability at the height of his success. At this level, critics can rarely do more than ...

Foreword to Outlaw Blues by Paul Williams

Book Excerpt by Michael Lydon, Rolling Stone, April 1969

[For the 21st-century edition of this book, Michael Lydon, a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine and the author of Rock Folk, Boogie Lightning and ...

The Kinks, Barbara Lewis, The Who: Styles of the City

Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, The Guardian, 19 August 1969

GEOFFREY CANNON ON POP MUSIC ...

Nik Cohn: Pop; Paul Oliver: The Story of The Blues

Book Review by Charlie Gillett, Record Mirror, 23 August 1969

Charlie Gillett reviews two books on music: Pop by Nik Cohn, and The Story of The Blues by Paul Oliver ...

Close-Up: Nik Cohn

Profile by Geoffrey Cannon, Harper's Bazaar, September 1969

Author's note, 2019. The first thing to know about Nic Cohn is that his 1969 book AWopBopaLooBopLopBamBoom: Pop from the Beginning was chosen in 2016 ...

Electric Kool-Aid: On & Off the Bus

Essay by Michael Lydon, Fusion, 6 March 1970

The last words of Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test are "WE BLEW IT". In caps, naturally. ...

The Sound of the City — The Rise of Rock and Roll by Charlie Gillett 375 pp. (Outerbridge & Dienstfrey, New York — distributed by E.P. Dutton)

Book Review by Greg Shaw, Who Put The Bomp!, October 1970

WITH THIS book, the study of rock & roll reaches a level of sophistication matching that of blues and jazz research. The day is gone ...

The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll (by Charlie Gillett. Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 375 pp., $2.95)

Book Review by John Morthland, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1970

CHARLIE GILLETT is a very likeable Englishman who recently released the most exhaustive study yet of rock and roll and the music industry. He's 28, ...

George Melly: Revolt into Style (Allen Lane/Penguin Press)

Book Review by Geoffrey Cannon, Punch, 25 November 1970

"HERE LIES not only its origins, but its glory. It came, after all, out of a yearning for the marvellous, out of a need on ...

Creem Reflects Detroit Rock 'n' Roll And Tries to Direct 'the Monster'

Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 19 December 1970

ROCK 'N' ROLL has always had its own journalistic field. The teen magazines used to tell us about Paul Anka's nose job and Elvis Presley's ...

Dear Charlie... Love, Lester

Retrospective by Lester Bangs, Excerpts from letters to Charlie Gillett, 1971

CREEM,187 South Woodward Avenue, Suite 203Birmingham, Michigan 48011(313) 642-8833[Autumn 1971] ...

Bob Dylan: Dylan’s Tarantula

Review by David G. Walley, Zygote, 1971

TARANTULA: twenty-five year-old visions of reality/letters to himself and posterity, now here in some other form from miracle xerox. Tarantula--visions of Aretha, soul singer in ...

Germaine Greer: A Groupie in Women's Lib

Report and Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 7 January 1971

LONDON — ON a crazy Sunday afternoon in London, Germaine Greer lolls in the corner of a crowded room with a silver knit flapper's hat ...

John Mendelsohn, Rock Critic

Comment by John Mendelsohn, Phonograph Record, February 1971

(This article was a response to an article in Jazz & Pop highly critical of rock criticism in general, and John Mendelsohn in particlular, by rock writer ...

Music Magazines: The Real Rock ‘n’ Roll Underground

Overview by Greg Shaw, Creem, June 1971

DO YOU EVER get so sick of the latest Leon Russell or Ten Years After album that you switch off the FM radio in disgust ...

The Sound of the City by Charlie Gillett (Outerbridge & Dienstfrey, $2.50paperback, $6.50 hard cover)

Book Review by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 22 July 1971

A Fine Text on the Rise of Rock ...

Around The Rock Roots

Comment by Martin Hawkins, Record Mirror, 31 July 1971

"DID YOU EVER HEAR A TENOR SAX, SWINGING LIKE A RUSTY AXE?" ...

Mick Farren: Rock Rebel with a Cause

Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 28 August 1971

TWENTY-SIX-year-old Mick Farren, ex-singer with the Deviants, writer, political activist and spokesman for the underground, has been called many things. However, he prefers to define ...

The Oz Obscenity Trial: Guilty

Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 2 September 1971

LONDON — Great Britain no longer need envy America its Chicago Conspiracy Trial. They've come up with a pretty good one of their own and ...

Underground Press An Important Promotion Outlet

Overview by Lon Goddard, Billboard, 13 November 1971

THE BRITISH underground press, or experimental press serves the budding supporters of the "Alternative Society" in a manner that is easily digestible; from a literary ...

Charlie Gillett replies to Book Review

Letter by Charlie Gillett, Who Put The Bomp!, Spring 1971

THANKS FOR the fantastic review — I had begun to get uneasy about praise that was coming from people who didn't know too much about ...

So You Wanna Be a Rock'n'Roll Writer (Keep a Carbon!)

Guide by Charlie Gillett, Rock File 1, 1972

My favourite music magazine is called Creem. It's published in Detroit, Michigan, and every month the first thing I see is a statement next to ...

Elvis Presley: Jerry Hopkins: Elvis – The Biography

Book Review by Greg Shaw, Phonograph Record, January 1972

THERE HAS never been an entertainer quite like Elvis Presley. His life and his contribution to rock 'n' roll have assumed such legendary proportions, which ...

The Rock & Roll Press

Overview by Metal Mike Saunders, The Rag, 24 January 1972

MOST PEOPLE LISTEN to rock and roll. Yet others read about it, and some actually have the lunacy to write about it! Where there’s money ...

Rock Folk, Michael Lydon; Feel Like Going Home, Peter Guralnick; The Rolling Stone Interviews

Book Review by Charlie Gillett, Creem, March 1972

WHEN DOES the interviewer become PR man? Or vice-versa. It's depressing how often rock papers, in Britain and in the States, are prepared to let ...

Nik Cohn: My Book is Rubbish but it’s the Best

Interview by Steve Turner, Beat Instrumental, May 1972

"There is only one decent book that has ever been written on pop," said Nik Cohn from beneath his wide brimmed hat, "and that's Awopbopaloobopalopbamboom ...

Bees, The (USA), The Chocolate Watchband, Count Five, The Kingsmen, The Remains, The Seeds, The Standells, 13th Floor Elevators: Nuggets; Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era Compiled by Lenny Kaye (Elektra 7E-2006)

Review by Greg Shaw, Rolling Stone, 4 January 1973

Punk Rock: the arrogant underbelly of '60s pop ...

RockFile: Where The Writing Ends, The Memory Game Begins

Review by Mick Houghton, Let It Rock, February 1973

ROCK FILE is one of the current crop of books on music which has moved away from the more historical analysis, and deals with the ...

Bob Dylan: Left Hand of God?

Essay by Greil Marcus, Let It Rock, March 1973

IN THE NOVEMBER issue of Let It Rock, Tony White offered some rather hysterical opinions in his Dylan bootleg discography, and Tony Scaduto, author of ...

Rock Critics Rule... and other startling musical revelations!

Special Feature by J. Montague Fitzpatrick, Coast, April 1973

Or: how Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, Chet Flippo, Nick Tosches, Robot A. Hull, Lenny Kaye, Richard Meltzer, Mike Saunders, Gene Sculatti, Ed Ward and 26 ...

Jon Landau: It’s Too Late To Stop Now

Review by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, May 1973

I FEEL UNEASY, confronting Landau. If a rock critic is a parasite, what is the critic of a rock critic? Landau is a rock critic ...

OZ: More Than Simply Another Hippy Rag

Report by Jonathon Green, International Times, 31 May 1973

I TOLD YOU so. I've always wanted to say it, and now I can. Here, as I hack out yet another goddam obituary, I can ...

Lillian Roxon

Obituary by Richard Goldstein, The New York Times, 26 August 1973

LILLIAN ROXON, who died on Aug. 9, understood something important about pop music and its milieu, which is that the very basis of its impact ...

Lillian Roxon, Journalist-Author Of Rock Encyclopedia Dies at 41

Obituary by Loraine Alterman, Rolling Stone, 13 September 1973

NEW YORK — Lillian Roxon, author of the Rock Encyclopedia, was many things to many people. ...

Lester Bangs: Exile in Detroit City: A Imaginary Conversation with Lester Bangs

Comment by Metal Mike Saunders, Brain Damage, 1 June 1974

SO WE FINALLY decided it was time to come to terms with Lester Bangs... ...

How to be a Rock Critic: A Megatonic Journey

Essay by Lester Bangs, Shakin' Street Gazette, 10 October 1974

LATELY I'VE NOTICED a new wrinkle on the American landscape: it seems as if there's a whole generation of kids, each one younger than the ...

Star Trek: You, too, can be a superstar

Report by uncredited writer, IPC News, December 1974

A MILLION men go from ashes to ashes. Only the man-in- a-million journeys from dust to stardust. ...

How to Become a Rock Critic in 7 Easy Lessons

Guide by Deanne Stillman, MORE: A Journalism Review, 1975

1 Isolating the Primary Facts Just as college journalism students learn the comprehensive "Five-W" lead (who, what, when, where, why), the rock journalist must learn the ...

Lester Bangs: Epistle to a Young Critic: A Letter from Lester Bangs, February 1975

Letter by Lester Bangs, unpublished, February 1975

Thirty years ago, RBP contributor Susan (then Suzan) Compo was an apprentice punkette and aspiring rock scribe living in Tustin, California. An avid reader of ...

Ralph J. Gleason: Yesterday, we were all losers

Obituary by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 4 June 1975

EARLY MORNING phono calls are the bad ones. A year ago I was jangled awake and plunged into gloom on hearing "Duke died." ...

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 ...

Perspectives on Ralph J. Gleason

Memoir by Al Aronowitz, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1975

RALPH GLEASON got hooked on music when he was a high school kid in Chappaqua, New York, back in the early '30s. You gotta dig ...

The Rolling Stones: Robert Greenfield: A Journey through America with the Rolling Stones

Book Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 20 September 1975

I FEAR THIS book may be the one that could finally O.D. the reader on rock writing, particularly that flat, conscientious, detailed, post-Truman Capote style ...

Neil Young Paints It Black: Zuma

Review by Paul Nelson, The Village Voice, 24 November 1975

NOTE: ON APRIL 14, 1983, Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's manager, wrote a letter to Paul: "This is to advise you that we will co-operate with ...

Pete Wingfield: The Wheel Goes Full Circle

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, January 1976

IN THE EARLY DAYS of ZigZag, when Frame and I were young lads, Childs wasn't even born, and San Francisco was where it was at ...

Gil Scott-Heron (1976) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Cliff White, Rock's Backpages transcripts, February 1976

This is a transcript of Cliff's audio interview with Gil. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

Rock Dreams/Schemes: The History of Crawdaddy(!)

Retrospective by John Swenson, Crawdaddy!, March 1976

YOU ARE looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy! will feature neither pin-ups nor news briefs; the specialty ...

Ian Hunter: Reflections Of A Rock Star

Review by Lester Bangs, Phonograph Record, September 1976

Ian Hunter: Coping With Modern Day Rock Stardom ...

Time out on Melody Maker

Report by Ed Jones, Time Out, 8 October 1976

THERE ARE ruffled feathers at Stalag Meymott, prefab home of Melody Maker, where editor Ray Coleman has been enjoying unusually frank communication with his staff. ...

The (?) Rock Special (#4): Mark P

Profile and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, 9 October 1976

"I may be sounding dramatic but I wanna go out and hear the sounds that I like every night, I wanna have to choose what ...

The Critics' Critic

Essay by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 16 December 1976

THERE'S BEEN nothing but grief since Newsweek (or was it the Sunday New York Times!) decided that rock critics invented Bruce Springsteen. Only a moron ...

The Critics' Critic II

Essay by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 13 January 1977

ROCK CRITICISM is now often seen in many quarters as more important than rock itself. Many critics carry this one step further by superimposing their ...

White punks on deadline

Interview by Ed McCormack, Rolling Stone, 10 March 1977

"Nobody wants to see Punk grow up" ...

Patti Smith: Lenny Kaye: New York Nuggets

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, May 1977

IN ISSUE 68 [of ZigZag], Patti Smith talked about a number of things during an account of the first half of her visit to this ...

Aerosmith, Blondie, Boston, Alice Cooper, Charlie Daniels, Rick Derringer, The Eagles, Flo & Eddie, Rory Gallagher, Janis Ian, Jefferson Starship, Jethro Tull, KISS, Al Kooper, Lou Reed, The Runaways, Todd Rundgren, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits: Rock Stars Talk Back

Comment by Susan Whitall, Creem, May 1977

Dozens listen. ...

What The New Wave's Thrown Up — Punk Press Report

Overview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, May 1977

THE RECENT deluge of New Wave fanzines can only be a good thing... they're written and created by fans for the fans, with no sign ...

Valerie Wilmer: "Art is a luxury. Music is a functional thing."

Interview by Brian Case, New Musical Express, 7 May 1977

Photographer-writer VALERIE WILMER opts for unlearning and the sovereignty of the heart ...

American Grandstand: The Reel Paper

Comment by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 19 May 1977

JOAN MICKLIN Silver's new movie, Between the Lines, purports to tell the story of the Boston Mainline, an alternative weekly not unlike Boston's relatively real-life ...

The Beatles: Paperback Writer: A New History Of The Beatles by Mark Shipper (Marship Publications)

Book Review by Marty Cerf, Phonograph Record, June 1977

BEATLEFICTION. It's so simple so obvious, it's amazing no one's thought of it till now. What, short of the re-grouped Beatles, could be more logical ...

Just a few thousand words in your ear: A history of the rock press

Retrospective by Giovanni Dadomo, Jon Savage, Sounds, 20 August 1977

... Is this communicating? (Arthur Lee, 1968) ...

The Art Attacks: Art Attax: Red Cow, London

Live Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 1 October 1977

Great but brain-Attaxing ...

Elvis Presley: Junk, junk food junk prose (pulpitations for all)

Book Review by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 15 October 1977

Red West, Sonny West, Dave Hebler, as told to Steve Dunleavy: Elvis – What Happened? ...

Essaying The Sound of the City: Gillett and After

Essay by Paul Yamada, Terminal Zone, Spring 1977

ANYONE WELL acquainted with the pop and R&B charts from 1948-1954 knows a few odd things about rock. ...

Bruce Springsteen: Proceedings of Discovery

Comment by Bruce Pollock, Gannett Westchester Newspapers, 1978

WE ROCK PUNDITS, critics and reviewers, Rockwells of good taste, O'Neills of moral fervor, are in reality no better than the average slob on the ...

Fanzines: Pure Pop Art For Now People

Overview by Jon Savage, Sounds, 14 January 1978

"THEY are vital, audacious, reckless insofar as they represent an extreme view adopted in a broad popular m way, and they have a curious brave ...

Sex Pistols: Letter From Britain: Winter Wasteland

Comment by Simon Frith, Creem, March 1978

I HATE WINTER, even in cosy old Britain, so I certainly don't know what I'm doing here, sitting in a motel room in Birmingham, Michigan, ...

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 ...

The Bush Fire That Ate Bogville, Arizona

Overview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 8 April 1978

Oh-no-not-another-fanzine-survey (goes West) ...

The Rolling Stones: Everybody's talking to Lisa Robinson

Profile and Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 4 May 1978

NEW YORK — IT IS conceivable that America's most influential rock byline has never appeared in Rolling Stone. Lisa Robinson's natural turf is self-created and ...

Patti Smith: Babel (Putnam/Longman)

Review by Jeffrey Morgan, Roxy, June 1978

TEMPTING AS IT MAY BE, it would be far too easy to dismiss Patti Smith merely as a literary quack and let it go at ...

John Cooper Clarke: Just Another Ex-Gravedigger Poet Into Dada and the TV

Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, 9 September 1978

GARRY BUSHELL GOES PUNK-SURREAL ...

Mick Farren: London

Live Review by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 23 September 1978

"HELLO, MY name's Mick Farren...I wanna drink!" ...

Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones: Rolling Stones Dump On Rolling Stone

Report by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978

THE CHANGES which the imaginary magazine depicted in Between The Lines goes through — from radical underground to counter-culture to hip capitalist establishment — is ...

Angry Samoans, Vom: The Metal Mike Saunders Interview

Interview by Gary Sperrazza!, Big Star, Spring 1978

In the early '70s, Mike Saunders was one of the leading and best writers around, especially when he was writing about the topics most near ...

Blast Furnace & The Heatwaves, Christopher Milk, Mick Farren, Nick Kent, Patti Smith, The Pretenders: The Pen Is Mightier As A Chord

Report by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 17 March 1979

...sometimes. The rock critic as musician. By Sandy Robertson ...

Punk Attack: 'The Obituary of Rock and Roll'

Book Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 28 June 1979

Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons: The Boy Looked at Johnny (Pluto Press) ...

Blondie, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman: Crits fiddle while public burns...

Report by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 30 June 1979

Fripp, Eno and others debate the future of a species ...

Lester Bangs, Blondie: Everyone's a rock critic: The lost Lester Bangs interview

Interview by uncredited writer, unpublished, 1980

FOLLOWING the release of Blondie, Lester Bangs was interviewed for a radio program called News Blimp. A copy of the tape was sent to me ...

William Burroughs, Mick Jagger: Table talk

Report by Victor Bockris, Tatler, 1980

Victor Bockris fails to entertain Jagger, Warhol and Burroughs ...

Pete Frame: The Man Behind the Trees

Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 15 March 1980

FIRST, I suppose, I should declare an interest. I get thanked for my help three times in Pete Frame's Rock Family Trees (Omnibus £3.95) and ...

John Cooper Clarke: The Bard Of Beasley Street At The Seat Of Learning

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 May 1980

THE OXFORD University Union porter peered at us fish-eyed. "Are you members?" he said. "Er, no - we're with the poet." ...

The Pop Group, The Slits: The Slits, The Pop Group: Rough Justice in the Court of the Purple Paragraph

Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 21 June 1980

Following a more-than-rigorous analysis of the last Slits/Pop Group single, the twin terrors of Rough Trade challenged Ian Penman to a verbal showdown. This is his ...

Stewart Copeland, The Police: The Police: Turning Tables

Interview by Ronnie Gurr, Record Mirror, 4 October 1980

Cub reporter STEWART COPELAND grills RONNIE (the star) GURR ...

Slash: Sitting In Limbo

Report by Don Snowden, New York Rocker, November 1980

LOS ANGELES — Rumors have been running rampant about the imminent demise of Slash magazine. A forthcoming issue may indeed be its swansong... but then ...

I Knew Emmett Grogan

Memoir by Al Aronowitz, The Blacklisted Masterpieces of Al Aronowitz, 1981

YEAH, I KNEW Emmett Grogan, knew him well enough to've gone on a half-ass caper with him in behalf of a coke dealer who thought ...

John Lennon, Yoko Ono: Rolling Stone Gathers A Little Moss

Report by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 9 January 1981

SIX LOS Angeles area supermarket chains, including Ralphs, Safeway and Alpha Bela, have refused to carry the Jan. 22 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. The ...

Nick Kent, The Subterraneans: The Almost Legendary Nick Kent Story

Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 10 January 1981

The modest (if a mite incestuous) tale of the celebrated NME writer who is now on the threshold of becoming a bona fide rock star ...

Jim Carroll: The Transformation of Jim Carroll

Profile and Interview by Laura Fissinger, Musician, February 1981

IS JIM CARROLL, streetwise poet, athletic Catholic Boy, being pushed into the vacant position of rock'n'roll martyr? ...

Barry D. Kramer 1943-1981

Obituary by Dave Marsh, Creem, April 1981

(On January 29 CREEM publisher and founder Barry Kramer died at 37, just as we were going to press. Our business is words, but they ...

The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll — Revised Edition; Edited by Jim Miller (Random House/Rolling Stone)

Book Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, May 1981

Less Is More? ...

Letter from Britain: Rock Papers For Brits

Report by Penny Valentine, Creem, June 1981

BEING A survivor of at least two British rock papers — one of them now slipped in the annals of time — a new arrival ...

Sam Charters: Chains that Gave Birth to the Blues

Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 6 June 1981

Mick Brown reports how the musicologist Sam Charters learned to stop feeling guilty about slavery ...

Bruce Springsteen: Springsteen Forged Passports To A Promised Land

Comment by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 4 July 1981

"What my band and I are about is a sense of responsibility. If you accept it, that makes you responsible for everything that happens. People ...

Hank Williams: Chet Flippo: Your Cheatin' Heart — A Biography Of Hank Williams (Simon and Schuster)

Book Review by Susan Whitall, Creem, September 1981

ROSANNE CASH, Johnny's first-born and as I write, No. 1 on the country charts, was quoted in Esquire: "A lot has happened in country music ...

Elvis Presley: Goldman Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog!

Book Review by Bill Holdship, Creem, February 1982

Elvis by Albert Goldman (McGraw-Hill) ...

Todd Rundgren: Utopia in Woodstock: Todd Rundgren

Interview by Paul Morley, New Musical Express, 24 April 1982

IF I AM THE LAST writer about pop music of any standing, Alfred G. Aronowitz was the first. He was matchmaking, twitching and joking from ...

Lester Bangs: Jook Savages on the Brazos (Live Wire Records)

Review by Byron Coley, L.A. Weekly, 7 May 1982

Lester Bangs Writes a Good 'Un ...

Lester Bangs: Ballad of a Loudhearted Man

Obituary by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 15 May 1982

"Lester Bangs is the rock critic's rock critic, a man gifted verbally in much the same way that James Brown is gifted as a dancer. ...

Lester Bangs: 1948-1982

Obituary by Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone, 10 June 1982

  NEW YORK CITY ...

Lester Bangs: The Immortal Lester Bangs

Obituary by Robot A. Hull, Unicorn Times, July 1982

"...but there is a death in the balance and you better look long and hard at it, you stupid fuckheads, you who treat life as ...

Lester Bangs, R.I.P.

Obituary by Ira Robbins, Trouser Press, August 1982

LESTER BANGS, whose writings probably influenced the style and outlook of countless rock critics, died in his New York apartment on April 30 at the ...

Steve Beresford: Everywhere Man: Steve Beresford

Profile and Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 25 September 1982

You name it, Beresford had done it. He'd played bass, played piano, played trumpet...he'd composed music, improvised music, organised music, he'd written about the damn ...

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. ...

Leonard Cohen: Songs from a Room: The Inside Story of Leonard Cohen

Retrospective by Liz Thomson, The History of Rock, 1983

IT WAS IN 1956 that the work of Leonard Cohen first appeared before the general public in book form, an event that marked his transformation ...

Gloria Stavers: October 3rd, 1927-April 1st, 1983

Obituary by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 12 May 1983

ON THE surface, 16 magazine was no more than a shallow, dizzy fanzine for teenage girls. It was crammed with bubblegum singers, TV idols, "win ...

Subbed Culture: The Meaning of Bile

Essay by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 18 February 1984

Should the rock press only reflect what's happening, or has it the power to make things happen? With the proliferation of teen pop glossies, which ...

Rock & Roll Fanzines: A New Underground Press Flourishes

Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 29 March 1984

Inside news for the hard core ...

Shredder: Teen Scene from Belly of the Beast

Interview by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 1984

Now flip that teen coin and meet a breed of kiddies who are not going to dance clubs, who are not listening to floaty romantic ...

Davitt Sigerson: Falling In Love Again (Ze Records)

Review by Jane Solanas, New Musical Express, 11 August 1984

I'M HAPPY to announce this is The Worst Record I've Ever Listened To, not so ecstatic to say that it's on Ze Records, the reason ...

Davitt Sigerson: AOR? Write On! An Interview with Davitt Sigerson

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984

DAVITT SIGERSON insists he isn’t smarting from the NME review which described Falling In Love Again as ‘The Worst Record I’ve Ever Heard." ...

Not a Perfect Portrayal Of Rolling Stone Editor

Film/DVD/TV Review by Ben Fong-Torres, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 June 1985

I JUST saw Perfect, the new movie with John Travolta as a Rolling Stone reporter and Jann Wenner (the actual editor of Rolling Stone) as ...

Jack Kerouac: Hit The Road, Jack: A Man Called Kerouac

Retrospective by Biba Kopf, New Musical Express, 6 July 1985

AMERICAN RHAPSODISTS come thick and fast, frenziedly spurtspraying words across the broad continental canvas by way of leaving traces, eager to fill in every dingly ...

Marvin Gaye: Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz

Review by Chris Salewicz, Time Out, 8 July 1985

The anguished life of Marvin Gaye ended on April 1, 1984, at the home in Los Angeles he had bought for his parents, when a ...

ABC (1985)

Interview by Ira Robbins, Rock's Backpages audio, 5 August 1985

ABC mainstays Mark White and Martin Fry on the state of the UK music press (particularly Smash Hits); on the making of their first three albums; on producer Trevor Horn; on songwriting and lyrics; on avoiding pandering to American tastes; and on their great dislike of touring.

File format: mp3; file size: 37meg, interview length: 38' 31" sound quality: ***

Led Zeppelin: Hammer Of The Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga by Stephen Davis (Wm. Morrow & Co.)

Book Review by Bill Holdship, Creem, October 1985

LEMONS OF THE GODS ...

J.G. Ballard: Closely Observed Trains

Profile and Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 26 October 1985

He never listens to music but he inspired the writing of 'Warm Leatherette' and Magazine's 'Motorcade', his trilogy of Crash, High Rise and Concrete Island ...

Culture Club: Dave Rimmer: Like Punk Never Happened: Culture Club And The New Pop (Faber And Faber £4.95)

Book Review by Tony Fletcher, Jamming!, November 1985

THE TITLE says it all. There are those of us who have, over the years, battled on our own territory desperately hoping that the downward ...

Julie Burchill: The 'Sweetest Girl'

Profile and Interview by Caroline Sullivan, Melody Maker, 2 November 1985

JULIE BURCHILL has torpedoed more sacred cows than a pop star has brain cells, though she likes (among other things) Sade and the Maker. Caroline Sullivan ...

Pet Shop Boys: The Pet Shop Boys: An ex-Smash Hits Writer and the Grandson of a Nitwit

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Smash Hits, 18 December 1985

Doesn't sound like the ideal line-up for a successful pop duo, does it? But now that 'West End Girls' is whizzing up the charts that's ...

Garry Bushell Ate My Hamster

Report and Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 22 March 1986

Soaraway Sun scribe GARRY BUSHELL finds himself on the other side of the fantastic fact-finding fence. STEVEN 'Scoop' WELLS digs a grave. ...

Julie Burchill: Woolly Bully

Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 3 May 1986

It's point and counterpoint in this bout of champions; in the camel pen, bile scribbler JULIE BURCHILL, defending her high-profile prose against the red trunks ...

Garry Bushell: The Most Evil Man In Pop

Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 10 May 1986

Scourge of the Looney Left, creator of Oi and prime exponent of the dreaded 'Sunspeak', GARRY BUSHELL makes a clean breast of it to Prof ...

Pop Journalism: Write or Wrong?

Overview by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 24 May 1986

Is it pop we're disillusioned with, or pop journalism? Is Paul Morley the curse or the saviour of the scribbling classes? Frank Owen takes a ...

Jim Carroll: A Nod Of Approval: The music and poetry of Jim Carroll

Interview by Gerrie Lim, Orange County Review, June 1986

"I'VE ALWAYS CONSIDERED myself a poet first," Jim Carroll says, his slightly cracked voice resounding clearly over the phone from New York. "That's what brings ...

Rock Magazines: Why They're So Good

Overview by John Mendelsohn, Creem, July 1986

YOU KNOW WHAT'S interesting about the rock print medium nearly two-thirds of the way through the '80s? That so much of it is aimed at ...

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 ...

The Beatles: Four Who Dared : Backstage With the Beatles on Their Last Tour

Retrospective by Judith Sims, Los Angeles Times, 3 August 1986

Twenty years ago this month, the Beatles, on their third American tour, staged 18 concerts in 14 cities and played to more than 450,000 screaming ...

Peter Guralnick's Soul Hits Sweet Spot

Interview by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 9 November 1986

DO YA LIKE good music? (Yeah, yeah.) Then Peter Guralnick's new book Sweet Soul Music (Harper & Row) is right down your alley, two steps ...

Nelson George: The Death of Rhythm & Blues (Omnibus)

Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Wire, 1987

NELSON GEORGE, self-described "B-Boy intellectual" and one of pop culture's few black writers of note, has written a book which (sort of) argues that the ...

Sam Charters on Folkways Records' Moe Asch (1987)

Interview by Tony Scherman, Rock's Backpages audio, January 1987

Charters talks about his friend, colleague and mentor Moe Asch: about starting to release his field recordings through Folkways; the importance of the label; the Harry Smith anthology; Sam Goody's support for the label; the label's bankruptcy and tax problems; Asch's brilliance, but being a difficult man to work with; the magnificent catalogue, and the scene surrounding the label.

File format: mp3; file size: 56.8mb, interview length: 59' 08" sound quality: **

Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant: Smash Hits Editor For A Day!?

Report and Interview by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 25 February 1987

Oh no! What to do? The Editor had flounced off to some so-called "conference", with half an issue of Britain's Brightest Pop Magazine still to ...

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 ...

1967, The Summer of Love: There Was a Brief Moment When the Sun Really Shone

Memoir by Judith Sims, Los Angeles Times, 2 August 1987

I'LL GET right to the point: 1967 was one of the best years of my life. ...

Angry Samoans: The Angry Samoans: Samoa, Ho!

Profile and Interview by Chuck Eddy, Creem, December 1987

"THE PURPOSE of music as a reflection of the ever-changing nature of the world is to make everything you like seem silly five years later, ...

Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth: Honey of the 'Core: Ten Years After... and it's Almost Independents Day

Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 16 January 1988

During 1987 the US indie underground began surfacing in much the same way as it had here a full decade earlier. BYRON COLEY, co-editor of ...

Lester Bangs: Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs, edited by Greil Marcus (Heinemann £9.95)

Book Review by Jon Savage, The Observer, 10 July 1988

Inside outsider ...

Nelson George: The Death Of Rhythm & Blues (Pantheon, 256 pages, $18.95 hardcover)

Book Review by Mark Dery, L.A. Weekly, 28 July 1988

SOLD BROTHERS ...

Simon Frith (1988)

Interview by Adam Blake, Rock's Backpages audio, 29 September 1988

The leading pop culture commentator on his latest book, Music for Pleasure: the book as clarification, and academic life vs. rock'n'roll; showbiz vs. pop; where pop is at now; the effects of globalisation; the declining importance of rock; music and capitalism; the space for idiosyncrasy; the impact of sampling; packaging vs. product, and what constitutes bourgeois culture.

File format: mp3; file size: 20.7mb, interview length: 21' 33" sound quality: **

Waxing Lyrical: The Rock Press

Essay by Paul Morley, Time Out, 4 October 1988

As the monochrome music press got lost in the technicolour '80s, and good- looking glossies took over colourful music writing, one thing was sure: just ...

Jon Savage: Cool and the Crazy

Interview by Richard North, Offbeat, November 1988

Richard North tackles post-punk pessimist, writer, dreamer and rebel without a cause – Jon Savage ...

The Rolling Stones: Stanley Booth: Myth and Misquotation

Essay by Greil Marcus, The Threepenny Review, Fall 1988

This was originally the address at the commencement ceremonies of the Department of History, University of California at Berkeley, on 20th May 1988. Greil Marcus ...

Nelson George: Soul Destroyer

Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 14 January 1989

As a columnist for Billboard and The Village Voice, Nelson George has been America's most incisive commentator on the changing face of black music culture. ...

Simon Frith: Music For Pleasure/Facing The Music/Art Into Pop

Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, May 1989

AS A SOCIOLOGIST who draws on Marxist principles to make sense of the Byzantine channels through which pop flows, Simon Frith was the first British ...

Greil Marcus

Interview by Jon Wilde, Melody Maker, 8 July 1989

IN 1977, GREIL MARCUS PUBLISHED MYSTERY TRAIN, ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF ROCK CRITICISM EVER WRITTEN. HIS NEW BOOK, LIPSTICK TRACES: A SECRET ...

Jimi Hendrix: Far Out

Book Review by Richard Williams, Q, December 1989

Charles Shaar Murray: Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix And Post-War Pop (Faber) ...

Jimmy Buffett: Oh, The Stories He Can Tell

Profile and Interview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 17 December 1989

"IF THE NUNS at school saw me signing like this, they'd hit me on the knuckles with a ruler," says Jimmy Buffett, scribbling his name ...

Lydia Lunch (1989) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Martin Aston, Rock's Backpages transcripts, Winter 1989

This is a transcript of Martin's interview with Lydia. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

Lester Bangs: Liberation Critic

Essay by Richard Riegel, Throat Culture, 1990

JAMMED INTO that soft-sided suitcase of guilts I've carried with me into my forties is the dull-but-persistent ache that I "owed" Lester Bangs a letter ...

Those That Can, Do … Music Criticism and Other Evils

Report by Chris Bourke, Rip It Up (New Zealand), January 1990

Rock critics are a bunch of misanthropic know-alls who like to talk more than they like to dance. They think they're the only ones who ...

The Beatles, Bulat Okudshava, The Rolling Stones, Vladimir Vysotsky: Timothy W. Ryback: Rock Around The Bloc – A History Of Rock Music In Eastern Europe And The Soviet Union (Oxford University Press)

Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, February 1990

WHEN PAUL MCCARTNEY announced his $8.5 million promotion deal with Visa at a recent press conference, he was challenged to explain how his new sideline ...

Rag Bag of Mags

Report by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 2 June 1990

Adam Sweeting looks at a new round of paper wars ...

Jack Kerouac: The Mythmaking of Jack Kerouac: The Jack Kerouac Collection (Rhino)

Review by Tom Graves, Rock & Roll Disc, September 1990

TRUMAN CAPOTE very nearly sank Jack Kerouac’s literary reputation with five well-chosen words that exploded like cigarette loads in the public eye. ...

Jimi Hendrix: Charles Shaar Murray: Crosstown Traffic – Jimi Hendrix and The Post-War Rock 'N' Roll Revolution (St. Martin's Press)

Book Review by Tim Riley, The Boston Phoenix, October 1990

THE BRITISH have always tried to claim Hendrix as their own. This argument falls apart right away not only because he was an American, but ...

Fredric Dannen on Hit Men

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vox, November 1990

Barney Hoskyns talks to Fredric Dannen, author of a chilling study of the American record industry. ...

Glenn Branca, Elliott Sharp: Glenn Branca and Elliott Sharp: "We are the Reality of this Cyberpunk Fantasy"

Interview by Mark Dery, Mondo 2000, 1991

GLENN BRANCA and Elliott Sharp philosophize with a hammer. And an anvil. And a stirrup. The two New York composers take Friedrich Nietzsche, who subtitled ...

Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett & the Dawn of Pink Floyd, Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson (Omnibus Press)

Book Review by Tom Hibbert, Q, February 1991

TWO EXCELLENT ways to become a sort of "cult" rock hero: 1) Be dead; 2) Be bonkers...Actually, come to think of it, the first option ...

Jonathan King: King Prat

Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 9 February 1991

On the titter count he scores high. And he insists on playing the prat because it pays off so handsomely. But the music biz has ...

Rock And The Tabloids: Publish And Be Damned

Report by Tom Hibbert, Q, March 1991

The pop columnists of Britain's tabloid papers had a high old time of it in the 1980s. Then they woke up to an unpleasant lesson ...

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 ...

Unsound Moves in the Print Trade

Report by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 11 April 1991

Caroline Sullivan investigates the long-standing malaise afflicting the weekly music press after last week's closure of Sounds and the merger of Record Mirror with Music ...

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: ***

The Adverts, The Clash, Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex: Jon Savage: "I Remember Punk Rock..."

Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 26 October 1991

He was a bored public schoolboy, then JON SAVAGE heard the Pistols and the Clash and the strings of his heart went ping. He's now ...

Elvis Presley: Greil Marcus: Elvis for everybody

Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 7 March 1992

Andy Gill talks to the writer Greil Marcus, Serious Elvis Person, about his chronicle of a cultural obsession ...

The Smiths: Sever Little Children: Morrissey And Marr: The Severed Alliance by Johnny Rogan (Omnibus Press)

Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Musical Express, 16 May 1992

A FANATIC, they say, is someone who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim. The Smiths spawned many fans — I know, I ...

Who the hell does GARRY BUSHELL think he is?

Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, September 1992

Here he comes, Mr Lager Top, with his shining nose and monstrous grin and unsupportable beard, talking about "poofs" and "Oi!" and "invalidated Socialism" and ...

Rolling Stone: A Day in the Life

Memoir by Andrew Bailey, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1992

I RAN THE magazine's London office for five years in the early Seventies, contributing stories and acting as editor for a bunch of other writers, ...

Paul McCartney: "It was my role to be a bit more the cheerful chap than the others"

Memoir by Paul Gambaccini, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1992

PAUL McCARTNEY changed my life when I heard 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' for the first time, on WINS in New York in late ...

Madonna: The Madonna Pornucopia

Preview by Richard Harrington, The Washington Post, 21 October 1992

PSSSST! WANNA see some new Madonna product? ...

Greg Shaw (1993)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 1993

Mojo Navigator and Bomp founder Greg Shaw on his early days in psychedelic San Francisco, L.A. Garage Punk, The Doors, Love and Los Angeles rock.

File format: mp3; file size: 86.5mb, interview length: 1h 30' 08" sound quality: ***

The GTOs: Pamela Des Barres (1993)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 1993

The Girl Together Outrageously looks back with fondness at her time as L.A.'s Queen of the Groupies: the people — Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Gram Parsons, Lowell George, Led Zep; the scenes from the '60s Sunset Strip to Rodney's English Disco, and the transition from free love to corruption and abuse.

File format: mp3 File size: 60.3mb Interview length: 1h 05' 53" seconds Sound quality: ***

David Bowie: Bowie Knifed: Backstage Passes: Life On The Wild Side With David Bowie by Angela Bowie with Patrick Carr

Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1993

The ex-wife speaks: David Bowie was an alien, had nothing to do with his own success and was no Cherry Vanilla. ...

Morrissey, Suede: Brett Anderson & Morrissey: Suedegate

Comment by Sheryl Garratt, The Face, May 1993

Does this magazine print deliberate lies? Well actually no, we don't ...

Elvis Presley, Sex Pistols: Greil Marcus: A Surfer on the Zeitgeist

Profile and Interview by Andy Beckett, The Independent, 23 May 1993

This isn't exactly life on the edge: Greil Marcus is married, nearly 50, and lives in a nice big house in northern California. But he ...

Max Jones, 1917-1993

Obituary by Brian Case, Melody Maker, 14 August 1993

IT WAS ALWAYS impossible to tell Max Jones, who died this month aged 76, anything about jazz that he didn't already know, or indeed get ...

Mojo: Rock of Ages

Report by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 29 October 1993

Mojo, a glossy monthly aimed at ageing rockers, is the latest in a long line of minutely targeted music magazines ...

John Lennon, Elvis Presley: Albert Goldman: Double Fantasy?

Obituary by Miles, MOJO, 1994

The late Albert Goldman wrote two vicious character profiles, of Elvis and Lennon, and was crucified for his pains. He claimed their fans simply couldn't ...

Elvis Presley: Elvis: The Goldman Factor

Essay by John Tobler, 'Aspects of Elvis', 1994

ELVIS PRESLEY WAS THE UNKNOWING centre of controversy in his quite short life: only being screened from the waist upwards on TV so that his ...

Lester Bangs: Rock 'n' roll as literature, literature as rock 'n' roll.

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1994

Whither Rock Gomorrah, the great gonzo hack's unpublished swansong? ...

Kurt Cobain, Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: Sound of silence

Comment by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 18 April 1994

Adam Sweeting explains how the media didn't react to the significance of Kurt Cobain's death. ...

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 ...

Nick Kent: The Write Stuff: Nick Kent

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, June 1994

FOR ANY CALLOW, maladjusted youth growing up in the early-to-mid-‘70s with the New Musical Express as his bible, Nick Kent was unquestionably the coolest rock ...

R.E.M.: Rock Criticism and the Rocker: A Conversation With Peter Buck

Book Excerpt by Anthony DeCurtis, Rocking My Life Away, September 1994

IN SEPTEMBER 1994 R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck kindly took time off from promoting R.E.M.'s Monster to do an interview with Anthony DeCurtis, who wanted an ...

Strange New Ways To Kill A Rock Critic

Overview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, September 1994

PREHENSILE Monkey-Tailed Skink? Screeching Weasel? PopDefect? Anus The Menace? Never heard of 'em? You may well yet, because these are the American bands being championed ...

East Coast Lives: The Rockin' Chiropodist

Profile by Michael Gray, LiveWire, October 1994

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE to interview Charles White if you walk alongside him around the streets of his adopted hometown, Scarborough: too many people are greeting him ...

Marianne Faithfull Springs Eternal

Interview by Deborah Frost, BAM, 7 October 1994

"Since AIDS, I've changed my attitude. Now I'm honored. I want to be part of the gay community and I am." ...

Elvis Presley: Love Him Tender, Love Him True

Book Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 1994

Peter Guralnick: Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley ...

Lester Bangs: Jook Savages

Memoir by Nick Tosches, The Nick Tosches Reader, 1995

LESTER BANGS, with whom I had drunk but whose writing I had never read, had died not long after Hellfire came out, in the spring ...

Richard Hell: Victor Bockris presents Susan Sontag & Richard Hell, New York City, 1978

Interview by Victor Bockris, The Poetry Project, February 1995

IT WAS THE EVENING of the fifteen-foot snow blizzard and SUSAN SONTAG was due at my Greenwich Village apartment from her 107th Street penthouse at ...

Combustible Edison, Esquivel, Stereolab: Incredibly Strange Music: The Revenge of the Un-Hip

Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 5 February 1995

IT'S OFFICIAL: IT'S HIP TO BE square. Collectors are paying top dollar for original albums from such '50s and '60s easy-listening fare as LP's designed ...

Berry Gordy: To Be Loved – The Music, The Magic, The Memories Of Motown (Headline)

Book Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 1995

AT THE get-go, Berry Gordy states that "the misconceptions about me and Motown have become so great I finally had to deal with them." Four ...

Patti Smith: Early Work 1970-1979 (Plexus)

Book Review by Susan Compo, MOJO, March 1995

ROCK'S MOST evocative lines from the 1970s involved religion: "I am an anti-Christ/I am an anarchist". . . "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not mine." ...

Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: Sandy Troy: Captain Trips — The Life And Fast Times Of Jerry Garcia (Virgin £9.99)

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 ...

Gil Scott-Heron: A Frail Godfather

Profile and Interview by Mark Mordue, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 1 March 1995

GIL SCOTT-HERON greets me genially. He's slightly spidery in his dangled movements, surprisingly slight and aged. At 45 the man oft referred to as The ...

The Coal Porters, Sid Griffin: What a Long, Strange Ryde(r) It's Been: Sid Griffin

Interview by Bill Wasserzieher, The Bob, April 1995

SID GRIFFIN emerges from the underground tube station at Piccadilly Circus, a long coat over his shoulders, collar up against the chill, and coattails adrift ...

Joy Division: Deborah Curtis: Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis And Joy Division (Faber & Faber)

Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1995

AS THE JOURNALIST and pop historian Jon Savage Suggests in his foreword, for one narrowly defined sub-generation, Ian Curtis's suicide was a first personal encounter ...

Joy Division: She’s Got Control

Interview by Len Brown, Q, June 1995

Fifteen years after he hanged himself in their Macclesfield kitchen, Joy Division leader Ian Curtis has been "outed" by his widow, Deborah, as an ill-tempered, ...

Leroi Jones: Blues People

Review by Tony Russell, MOJO, July 1995

WHEN BLUES PEOPLE WAS PUBLISHED in 1963, LeRoi Jones became the first black American to have written a book about the blues. It did not ...

Big Star, Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson: Robert Gordon: It Came From Memphis (Secker & Warburg)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1995

"WE HAD poetic furor," says Memphis scenester Randall Lyon, a key figure in Robert Gordon's new book about the music of his home town. "I ...

Robert Palmer on Rock

Interview by Marc Weingarten, Rolling Stone, 5 October 1995

THE HISTORY of rock & roll has been told many times. Why is your version of the story any different? ...

Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic

Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Artforum, February 1996

WHEN Rock And The Pop Narcotic was first published in 1990, it incited a fair bit of controversy, startling many by the sheer aggression with ...

The Mean, Mean Month of March: Judith Sims and Les Malloy

Memoir by Ben Fong-Torres, The Gavin Report, 5 April 1996

IT'S BEEN a miserable month. I lost two friends, from two different worlds and generations, yet somehow connected with you and me. ...

Iceberg Slim: Needles and Pimps

Retrospective by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 12 May 1996

Sean O'Hagan chills out on Iceberg Slim, king of the ghetto ...

Brian Eno: A Year with Swollen Appendices (Faber & Faber)

Book Review by John L. Walters, The Wire, June 1996

NOTE: This is a "director's cut" version of John's review of Eno's book. ...

The Gospel according to Anthony Heilbut

Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, The Independent, 24 June 1996

From Mahalia Jackson to Death in Venice might seem a long journey. But for Anthony Heilbut, the renowned gospel expert and author of a new ...

Waiting For The Sun by Barney Hoskyns (Viking)

Book Review by Richard Cook, The Wire, July 1996

The darkside of LA music ...

Strolling Down Punk-Rock Lane: Legs McNeil

Profile and Interview by Ira Robbins, The New York Times, 7 July 1996

THE CLASS OF 1976 held a reunion in the lobby of the Gershwin Hotel late last month. While inspecting a photography exhibition documenting their youth, ...

Waiting For The Sun: The Story Of The Los Angeles Music Scene by Barney Hoskyns (Viking £20)

Book Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 21 July 1996

Weird scenes inside the goldmine ...

Ray Coleman: The Man Behind the Maker

Obituary by Chris Charlesworth, Daily Telegraph, September 1996

RAY COLEMAN, who has died from cancer aged 59, played a leading role in the growth of the British music press in the Sixties and ...

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 ...

Bill Drummond, Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction: The Chronicled Mutineers: Bill Drummond and Mark Manning

Profile and Interview by Gavin Martin, Vox, December 1996

THE TWO self-proclaimed Zen masters speed through the lush and leafy lanes of England's green and pleasant land to meet us at the train station. ...

Pamela Des Barres: No Holds Barres

Interview by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, 19 December 1996

Carol Clerk reports on the latest book from groupie supreme, Pamela Des Barres ...

Bruce Springsteen: Fred Goodman: The Mansion on the Hill (Times Books, $25)

Book Review by Ira Robbins, Rolling Stone, 6 March 1997

BABY, YOU'RE A RICH MAN A new book explores how rock & roll became a $20 billion business ...

Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young: Fred Goodman: The Mansion on the Hill (Times Books)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 1997

Deny it all we might, the truth is that music is a business. And its richest players have made billions without ever striking a single ...

Trouser Press: The Story Behind The Legendary Zine

Retrospective by Ira Robbins, Perfect Sound Forever, June 1997

EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the reasons that our zine started up was because there were other music nuts before us who wanted to tell the ...

Allen Ginsberg 1926-1997

Obituary by Miles, MOJO, June 1997

ALLEN GINSBERG and I were friends for over 30 years, and even though I am his "official" biographer, it is hard to sum up so ...

The Beatles: Derek Taylor, 1932-1997

Obituary by Chris Welch, The Independent, 9 September 1997

DEREK TAYLOR, the Beatles' press officer, brought calm, authority and a sense of dignity to the chaos of the '60s. As spokesman for the band ...

The Beatles: Derek Taylor: Obituary

Obituary by Richard Williams, MOJO, November 1997

IN 1963, WHEN BRIAN EPSTEIN INVITED HIM TO HANDLE the Beatles' PR, Derek Taylor was a 31-year-old national newspaper reporter with a suit and tie. ...

The NME: Days of Guns and Roses

Memoir by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 9 November 1997

IF MUSIC BE the food of love then the New Musical Express is, has always been, chips with everything. Part of its unique charm is ...

Robert Palmer, 1945-1997

Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 1 December 1997

POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend than Robert Palmer, the critic and musician who died l POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend ...

Robert Palmer

Obituary by Michael Gray, The Guardian, 17 December 1997

ROBERT PALMER, THE distinguished American music journalist and blues expert, has died in New York aged 52. ...

Press Officers: Trying to Keep the Customer Satisfied

Report and Interview by Steven Wells, Vox, February 1998

When you're the PRESS officer for a rock group, life's about fending off the scum press, nannying drug-addled lead singers... and punching out the odd ...

The NME Awards: You And NME We're History...

Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, New Musical Express, 7 February 1998

So which future James Bond handed out the awards in 1963 and '68? Who played their last UK show at 1966's do? And who sparked ...

Old, Jilted and Fat: Julie Burchill: I Knew I Was Right

Book Review by Fiona Russell Powell, Punch, 14 February 1998

Julie Burchill is celebrating the publication of her autobiography, but does the book provide a realistic portrait of the venomous and personally troubled columnist? Fiona Russell ...

Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix: Gary Carner (Ed.): Miles Davis Companion; Chris Potash (Ed.): Jimi Hendrix Companion (Omnibus)

Book Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, March 1998

THESE TWO volumes comprise anthologies of journalism, contemporary and retrospective, about two great black musicians of the 20th century whose brilliance was not usually matched ...

Tony Elliott (1998)

Interview by Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 13 July 1998

Tony Elliott talks about founding Time Out at university as a project in 1968; reading the underground press but not being a dope-smoking hippie; his awareness of both the pop, art and political scenes, and the need to package a variety of information; extending the editorial content, and the people he interviewed; their successes and failures, and missing punk and club culture; political and investigative journalism, and run-ins with the law; increasing lifestyle emphasis after the 1981 strike, and the magazine's philosophy and brand.

File format: mp3; file size: 67.6mb, total interview length: 1h 10' 26" sound quality: ***

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 ...

Gay Dad: Gay rites

Interview by Max Bell, The Evening Standard, 2 December 1998

The exceptionally named Gay Dad will headline the New Year's NME Brats night. And they're set for even bigger things, says MAX BELL ...

The critical condition: Awop bop aloo bop and so on

Essay by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 December 1998

The thing about pop music is it's everywhere. It's part of the day to day fabric of the world we live in, whether we like ...

Kinky Friedman: God Bless John Wayne (Faber and Faber)

Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999

Kinky Friedman is full of himself. He always was in his ’70s singing days with provocateur country & western outfit The Texas Jewboys. And now ...

Music Journalists: Why They Have To Write

Report and Interview by uncredited writer, Music Biz, 1999

MOST MUSIC industry professionals will argue that receiving press is more a matter of business than it is a desire to be in the limelight, ...

Rock 100: Um, What Was It We Wanted To Say?

Book Excerpt by David Dalton, Lenny Kaye, Cooper Square (reissue), 1999

Introduction to the Second Edition David Dalton & Lenny Kaye, June 15, Very Late Twentieth Century ...

Adam Gussow: Mr. Satan's Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (Pantheon)

Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 25 January 1999

NO, AUTHOR Adam Gussow hasn't sold his soul to Ol' Nick for wealth, fame, and power. Just the opposite, in fact, is the usual blues ...

Richard Grabel (1999)

Interview by Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 2 February 1999

The NME's NYC correspondent on the rise of hip hop and its impact on the downtown scene; clubs like the Roxy and the Funhouse; the dancefloor movers: Bambaataa, Arthur Baker, Jellybean Benitez and more.

File format: mp3; file size: 48.8mb, interview length: 53' 19" sound quality: ****

Dom Phillips (1999)

Interview by Bill Brewster, Rock's Backpages audio, 25 May 1999

The late Guardian journalist and sometime Mixmag editor talks about his first awareness of dance music; the role of the DJ and the rise of the superstar DJ; dance music's punk and hippie ideals; the multiple histories of the music and the evolution of rave culture; Fatboy Slim and Prodigy et al. as "the new rock'n'roll"; how dance music liberated men; the true financial value of DJs and the art of DJing, plus female DJs and the inherent sexism of the dance scene.

File format: mp3; file size: 37mb, interview length: 59' 44" sound quality: *** (background noise)

Dom Phillips: An Interview

Interview by Bill Brewster, unpublished, 25 May 1999

NOTE: This interview with the former Mixmag editor, murdered in the Amazon in June 2022 with his friend and activist Bruno Pereira, was conducted as ...

Donna Summer: Saturday Night Forever: The Story of Disco by Alan Jones & Jussi Kantonen (Mainstream Publishing PB £9.99)

Book Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, June 1999

Party like it's 1977. In the depressed 1970s, one musical movement dared to say (mirror)balls to despondency. Don't get down, get down! urges Jon Savage. ...

The Doors, John Lennon, Elvis Presley: What Killed Albert Goldman? A literary X-file

Retrospective by Victor Bockris, Gadfly, July 1999

In the 1980s, Albert Goldman became the most famous and despised biographer in the world because of his biographies of Elvis Presley (Elvis, McGraw Hill, ...

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 ...

David Bowie: David Buckley: Strange Fascination – The Definitive David Bowie Story

Book Review by Keith Cameron, The Guardian, 23 September 1999

WHILE MOST BOWIE biographies (notably Alias David Bowie, Peter & Leni Gillman's 1986 exposé of family mental illness and the Bowie "myth") are as welcome ...

Almost Famous: 1973 and all that

Essay by Charles Shaar Murray, The Guardian, 2000

1973 AS A rock and roll annus mirabilis? Six thousand miles away from the old Rolling Stone office in San Francisco, it felt more like ...

Mojo Navigator: Memories of Mojo

Retrospective by Gene Sculatti, Scram, 2000

SAN FRANCISCO, 1966. This was a long time ago. The Grateful Dead swung hard, fast and scary, and Peter Albin's demented LSD-preacher stalked stages as ...

Bill Drummond, The KLF: Bill Drummond: 45

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 2000

"POP MUSIC," writes Bill Drummond, "has become like a cancer that has spread through my whole body and is now affecting my brain." Having been ...

Charles Mingus: Growing Up Absurd

Book Excerpt by Gene Santoro, 'Myself When I Am Real' (Oxford University Press), 2000

THE BABY, barely three months old and pudgy but with bright eyes and an inquiring air, was the center of attention as he fussed on ...

The Mystery of Terry Southern

Retrospective by Victor Bockris, Gadfly, January 2000

BEFORE THE New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese, before the absurd cinema of Stanley Kubrick, before the Brave Gonzo World of Hunter S. ...

The KLF: Burning question: The KLF

Report and Interview by Andrew Smith, The Observer, 13 February 2000

Why did Bill Drummond set fire to £1 million? Why did he want to chop off his own hand on stage? And why did the ...

Dave Haslam: Manchester, England – The Story of the Pop Cult City (Fourth Estate)

Book Review by Andy Beckett, London Review of Books, 17 February 2000

ON TIB STREET in the centre of Manchester, in the part of the city keen to promote itself as the Northern Quarter, a new delicatessen ...

Lester Bangs, Warren Zevon: What ever happened to rock critic Paul Nelson? An Interview

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, March 2000

ROCK WRITING WAS not the first choice of Paul Nelson. A pioneer of rock criticism, and one of its most talented practitioners, Nelson (who cites ...

Lester Bangs: Did Lester Bangs Die In Vain?

Book Review by Ira Robbins, salon.com, 4 April 2000

Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic By Jim DeRogatis, Broadway, 256 Pages ...

Laurie Anderson: Epiphanies: Laurie Anderson

Interview by Rob Young, The Wire, May 2000

Laurie Anderson tells Rob Young how a great white whale lured her towards her latest revelations ...

Tupac Shakur: Nelson George: Hip Hop America/William Shaw: Westsiders/Cathy Scott: The Killing Of Tupac Shakur

Book Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, May 2000

HIP HOP NEEDS its users' manuals. How many of the millions who bought their in-vogue Fugees CD, say, could untangle the dialectic that daisychains together ...

Richard Meltzer: A Whore Just Like The Rest (Da Capo)

Book Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, May 2000

"I'M FAT, I drink too much. I feel grey, I feel old, I am old. This could be my last book," is how writer, critic, ...

The not-so-hip J.D. Considine: A music critic who writes about music

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, May 2000

J.D. CONSIDINE has been writing about popular music since 1977. During his more than 22-year career in rock criticism, he has polarized as many of ...

Marc Spitz: I Wanna Be Adored/Eric Winick: Lay Me Down

Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 10 May 2000

NO ONE ROCKS harder in rock and roll theatre than the hangers-on. Rocks, that is, the category of knowingness, like a playwright. Gets corrosive in ...

David Toop: Jeff Noon & David Toop: Needle In The Groove (Sulphur)

Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2000

AT A CERTAIN point in my journey through Jeff Noon and David Toop's shapeshifter alliance — an ingeniously treated setting of Noon's latest novel — ...

Enduring the noise: Martin Popoff Pops Off on Heavy Metal, Rock Criticism, and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, July 2000

IF CHUCK EDDY is heavy metal's bastard child, Martin Popoff is its favourite son. Popoff, 37, has been writing about metal for more than a ...

Lester Bangs: Rock 'n' Roll was the Big Bang

Retrospective by David Dalton, Gadfly, July 2000

FOR A LONG time, its shockwaves obliterated thought altogether. That was the great thing about it: it was anti-matter, it vaporized everything that wasn’t immediate, ...

Satanic Majesties' Bequest

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 1 July 2000

I'm a Man: Sex, Gods And Rock'n'roll by Ruth Padel (Faber & Faber, £12.99, 409pp) ...

Caroline Coon: Still fighting the bad guys

Profile and Interview by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 30 July 2000

In the '60s, Caroline Coon was famous for helping people caught in drugs busts. In the '90s she defended her right to paint penises. Now, ...

Sniffin' Glue: The Essential Punk Accessory

Retrospective and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, August 2000

WHEN THE FIRST Ramones album appeared in London, during the spring of 1976, it changed everything: not only the tempo and the look of rock, ...

Richard Meltzer: An Interview

Interview by Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever, August 2000

AS ONE OF the first people who decided that rock and roll was something that could and should be something that could be seriously written ...

The Rolling Stones: The True Adventures of Stanley Booth: An email interview with the Stones' greatest chronicler

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, August 2000

STANLEY BOOTH IS one hell of a writer. The evidence is clear once you pick up his book on the world's greatest rock ‘n' roll ...

Bert Jansch: Bert and my Book

Comment by Colin Harper, The Irish Times, 1 September 2000

CURRENTLY HOT on the heels of Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash as an individualist icon of 20th Century music – name-dropped as an ...

Dusty Springfield: Penny Valentine and Vicki Wickham: Dancing with Demons – The Authorised Biography of Dusty Springfield

Book Review by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 3 September 2000

THE WOMAN THE world remembers as kohl-eyed, bouffant-haired, nightingale-voiced Dusty Springfield was actually born Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien in 1939. ...

Allman Brothers Band: Crowe's Nest: Film Festival becomes Almost Famous for its 25th anniversary

Interview by Noe Gold, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 September 2000

Director Cameron Crowe presented his poetically autobiographical Almost Famous to the Toronto International Film Festival at a world premiere gala screening in the Roy Thomson ...

Craig Werner: A Change Is Gonna Come – Music, Race & the Soul Of America

Book Review by Gavin Martin, Uncut, October 2000

Potent history of black American music, from Gospel-fuelled Civil Rights-era freedom marches, through Motown, Monterey, The Million Man March and much, much more. ...

Part-Time Writer: Tom Smucker Keeps Us Hangin' By the Telephone

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, October 2000

TOM SMUCKER writes about music when he wants to. I wish he would "want to" more than he does. ...

Almost Truthful

Special Feature by David Dalton, Gadfly, 12 October 2000

INTERIOR DAY: A SMALL CUBICLE AT THE OBSOLETE ROCK 'N' ROLL WRITERS' RESIDENCY ...

Anthony DeCurtis: Populist at Large

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, November 2000

ANTHONY DECURTIS never liked the rock writing of Lester Bangs. He never read Creem. After 20 years, DeCurtis still writes for Rolling Stone and still loves and defends ...

Greil Marcus: Top Spin Service!!

Profile and Interview by Charlie Gillett, Rock's Backpages, 17 November 2000

Charlie Gillett, broadcaster and author of The Sound of the City, regularly invites guests to play radio "ping-pong" on his Saturday night show on London ...

David Cavanagh: The Creation Records Story – My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry for the Prize (Virgin)

Book Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 25 November 2000

WHEN NEWS OF the closure of Creation Records broke on November 26 1999, one person at least must have been grateful. David Cavanagh now had ...

He Got a TV Eye on You: The Ken Tucker Interview

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, December 2000

ONE DAY, BACK in 1974, a Lower East Side resident named Ken Tucker wrote Village Voice music editor Robert Christgau an angry letter because the Voice wasn't covering the ...

Melody Maker, 1926 - 2000, RIP

Obituary by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 15 December 2000

An era came to an end on 14th December when IPC Magazines announced the closure of its oldest music title, Melody Maker. ...

Lester Bangs: Jim DeRogatis: Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs (Broadway Books/Bloomsbury)

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, Revolver, Spring 2000

WHO WAS Lester Bangs? He was a rock critic. To be more precise, he was a rock critic like Muhammad Ali was a boxer or ...

Know Your NME!

Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, Sanctuary Press, 2001

Paul Gorman's In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press (Sanctuary Press) was an oral history of rock journalism in Britain and America – ...

Leonard Feather

Book Excerpt by Phil Hardy, Dave Laing, Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music, 2001

b. 13 September 1914, London, England, d. 22 September 1994, New York, USA ...

The Beach Boys: Paul Williams: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys – How Deep is the Ocean? Essays and Conversations

Book Review by John L. Walters, The Times Literary Supplement, 2001

"IF YOU'VE NEVER read Paul Williams but love Brian Wilson's music, you're in for a revelation", promises David Leaf in the introduction to this amiable ...

Nikki Giovanni: Whaddya Mean You've Never Heard Of… Nikki Giovanni?

Retrospective by James Maycock, MOJO, 2001

IN THE CRAZY, HEADY DAYS of the Black Power era, Nikki Giovanni was one of the few female voices to offset the rampant machismo of ...

David McGee: He will never be the editor of a rock magazine again

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, January 2001

IF ANYONE EVER writes a history on rock criticism and music writing, the names of Stanley Booth, Peter Guralnick and Nick Tosches will surely lead ...

Alternative TV: The iJamming! Chat: Mark Perry

Interview by Tony Fletcher, iJamming.net, January 2001

AS THE FIRST sentence of my mission statement makes clear, Mark Perry was a major factor in my deciding to write about music – though, ...

Almost Infamous

Report by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 26 January 2001

Anticipating the February 9 UK release of Cameron Crowe’s film Almost Famous, about a callow young scribe hitting the road with a mid-’70s rock band, ...

On the Guest List: Almost Famous

Review by Ed Doheny, Rock's Backpages, February 2001

Ed Doheny on Cameron Crowe’s almost-good Almost Famous – the first movie with a rock journalist for a hero. ...

The Rev. Charles M. Young calms down, grows up, and sings the joys of middle-age

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, February 2001

BACK IN THE mid and late '70s, Charles M. Young – known then as The Rev. Charles M. Young – roamed the halls of Rolling Stone magazine ...

So, what do Q know? RBP’s 50 favourite music books

Guide by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, 25 February 2001

"Genius!" trumpets the cover of this month’s Q magazine: "The 50 Best Music Books Ever Written." Naturally, we wuz hooked and forked over our three ...

A Rousing Interview of Self-affirmation with John Mendelssohn, King of L.A.

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, March 2001

ALTHOUGH NO one has written a biography about him, portrayed him in a movie, or released a collection of his rock writing, John Mendelssohn's name ...

In His Own Right: Ian MacDonald

Interview by Paul Gorman, unpublished, March 2001

I INTERVIEWED Ian MacDonald for my music press history In Their Own Write in March 2001. As charming, tolerant and insightful as the first-class prose ...

Richard Riegel: From Jester to Lester

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, March 2001

THERE WAS A TIME when Richard Riegel worried about his idolization of a friend. Worshipping a friend, co-worker and colleague doesn't really sound too healthy, ...

Confessions of a Grammy Nom

Report by Bud Scoppa, Rock's Backpages, 1 March 2001

"I Was Robbed," A Loser Whines, Then Delivers An Acceptance Speech That Never Was ...

LeAnn Rimes, Shaggy: Lure of Mr Lover Lover

Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 30 March 2001

Shaggy's breathless tales of sexual conquest will beguile pop fans who enjoy the simpler pleasures, says Lisa Verrico. ...

Gina Arnold in the Present Tense

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, April 2001

LOVE HER OR hate her, rock critic Gina Arnold writes from her own point of view. For Arnold, when writing about music, objectivity is thrown ...

Bob Dylan: Howard Sounes: Down the Highway – The Life of Bob Dylan

Book Review by Peter Stone Brown, Gadfly, April 2001

BOB DYLAN HAS been the subject of innumerable books. In this (the fifth) full-scale biography, British reporter Howard Sounes tracked down people previously unknown and ...

The Beatles: Ian MacDonald: Revolution In the Head - The Beatles' Records And The Sixties (1994, revised 1995, Pimlico)

Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 2001

IAN MACDONALD, now 52, was enraptured by The Beatles as a teenager, then generally disappointed by pop music from 1980 onwards. His attempt "to bring ...

Remembering Alan Betrock

Obituary by Andy Schwartz, The Village Voice, 7 April 2001

Alan Betrock was the passionate fanatic who founded the groundbreaking New York Rocker. Andy Schwartz, who succeeded him as the magazine’s publisher and editor, here ...

Caught With His Trousers Down: The Ira Robbins Interview

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, May 2001

IF ANYONE OUT there has a million dollars and wants to start a music magazine, please let Ira Robbins know about it. ...

El David: Saint Dalton Shoots His Mouth Off

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, May 2001

DAVID DALTON WAS a founding editor of Rolling Stone magazine. In between 1968 and 1971, Dalton penned Rolling Stone cover stories on Little Richard, James Brown and Elvis Presley. ...

Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Richard and Mimi Fariña: David Hajdu: Positively 4th Street – The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Fariña and Richard Fariña (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Book Review by Peter Stone Brown, Gadfly, 28 May 2001

A SIMPLE TWIST of Fate might have been a more appropriate title for this book, which is essentially a biography of Richard Fariña in disguise. ...

glenn mcdonald's War Against Rock Criticism

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, June 2001

glenn mcdonald [all lower case – RBP Ed.] is one of the most important rock critics working in the field today, though maybe "working" is ...

Bob Dylan: Howard Sounes: Down The Highway – The Life of Bob Dylan

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, June 2001

How pleasant to know Mr Dylan, who has written such oodles of stuff — or is it? ...

Ice-T: Iceberg Slim: The Best-Selling Pimp Remembered By His Widow

Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, Pride, June 2001

"YOU SEE, pimping's big business," growled an experienced pimp to Goldie, his aspiring protégé in the classic 1970's film, The Mack. Concluding his informal lecture, the ...

Chuck Klosterman: Fargo Rock City – A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nörth Daköta

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 3 June 2001

SPANDEX MAKES the heart grow fonder. When I was an editor at Spin magazine a few years ago, the article most people gushed over was ...

Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger: Irwin Silber of Sing Out!

Interview by Richie Unterberger, Perfect Sound Forever, July 2001

IN THE mid-1960's Irwin Silber was editor of Sing Out! magazine, the leading folk periodical in the United States. Here he talks about his personal ...

The Grey Lady's Pop Music Man: Jon Pareles in Conversation

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, July 2001

WHENEVER I INTERVIEW rock writers for this site, I always ask them to name their favourite music critics — writers that make them want to ...

Laurie Anderson: Invisible Jukebox: Laurie Anderson

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2001

MOST PEOPLE first heard about Laurie Anderson when her 1980 single, 'O Superman', an eight minute voiceloop and vocoder incantation, reached number two in the ...

Man On the Moon: An Interview With Tom Moon

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, August 2001

FORMER PROFESSIONAL musician Tom Moon, currently the pop music critic at the Philadelphia Inquirer, started his career in rock journalism because he was anxious to hear ...

I was an Oz schoolkid

Memoir by Charles Shaar Murray, The Guardian, 2 August 2001

It's 30 years since Oz was prosecuted in an infamous obscenity trial. The underground magazine had been guest-edited by a bunch of teenagers – and ...

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 By Michael Azerrad. (Little, Brown & Company. $25.95)

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times, 12 August 2001

WHEN JOEY Ramone died this past April, the flood of appreciations must have surprised casual music fans. The Ramones, quintessential 1970's punks, had never sold ...

The New Rolling Stone is... The New Yorker?!

Report by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 25 August 2001

Who would expect to find this year's best offline writing about music in The New Yorker? ...

Endgame: Avatar

Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, September 2001

ENDGAME ARE a trio from Leicester, featuring brothers Alan and Steven Freeman, with musician, engineer and designer Jim Tetlow. ...

Flaubert On the Off Days: Interview with Fred Schruers

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, September 2001

FROM AN EARLY stint at Circus, through a tenure at Rolling Stone magazine that spanned from the late '70s to the early '90s, then to Entertainment Weekly and Premiere in the '90s ...

Gregg Bendian

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, September 2001

"KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD period was sort of like when Miles went electric," enthuses jazz percussionist Gregg Bendian about the inspirational force behind his improvised tribute ...

Lester Bangs: Loud Bangs and Bestial Noises

Essay by Mark Sinker, The Wire, September 2001

In the 20 years since Lester Bangs wrote his 'Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise', the multi-mediated world has largely assimilated the hostile sounds he espoused. ...

Some Smiles With Miles: Milo Miles in Conversation

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, September 2001

IF YOU HAVE read rock criticism consistently during the last two decades, odds are, you have a read a piece by Milo Miles. Or maybe ...

Lester Bangs: Cum on Read The Noise: An Interview with former Creem writer Robert Duncan

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, October 2001

ROCK CRITIC Robert Duncan, a second generation Creem writer — he joined the magazine in the mid-'70s — is also the author of The Noise: Notes From a ...

Cornel West: Go See The Doctor: Cornel West's Sketches of My Culture

Review by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 16 October 2001

CORNEL WEST'S Sketches of My Culture is probably the first hip-hop record by a Harvard professor. I demand that academia reciprocate and immediately put Ol' Dirty Bastard ...

Lester Bangs: Remembering Lester

Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press, November 2001

"Everybody's a rock critic." – Lester Bangs ...

Rock's Backpages: Blasts from the past

Report and Interview by Andy Farquarson, The Guardian, 1 November 2001

Your ancient copies of NME can go. Andy Farquarson reports on an online library of music journalism. ...

Thoughts of a Rock Critic

Comment by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 17 November 2001

Four decades on, rock criticism is still (though barely) alive ...

The Deviants, Mick Farren: Mick Farren on the Deviants, Fantasy Fiction and Blowing Things Up

Profile and Interview by Erik Himmelsbach, L.A. Weekly, 23 November 2001

PUBLISHING MOGUL Felix Dennis was staring at the Caribbean Sea a few months ago, sucking down cocktails with fellow gazillionaires at Basil's Bar on the ...

In Memoriam: Meet Your Maker

Memoir by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, December 2001

It is a year since IPC shut down Melody Maker, the oldest of all popular music magazines. In this affectionate memoir, former MM staffer and ...

Paul Gorman: In Their Own Write: Adventures In The Music Press

Book Review by Ian MacDonald, Uncut, December 2001

Perceptive, hysterical history of rock journalism — from the horses' mouths ...

The Rolling Stones: Stephen Davis' Old Gods Almost Dead

Interview by David Dalton, Gadfly, December 2001

David Dalton Talks to Stephen Davis, Author of the First Full-Dress Biography of the Rolling Stones in Twenty Years ...

Mick Farren: Devout Deviant Takes A Trip Down Memory Lane

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 7 December 2001

Mick Farren: Give the Anarchist a Cigarette ...

Let's talk about me: Paul Gorman's In Their Own Write

Book Review by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 8 December 2001

The music industry is full of pompous bores – and that's just the writers. ...

Rock's Backpages: The Memory Bank

Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, MOJO, Fall 2001

Websites: Rock journalism now has its own archive. Edward Helmore thinks that's a good idea. ...

The Ramones, The Smiths: Everett True: Hey Ho Let's Go – The Story Of The Ramones/Simon Goddard: The Smiths – Songs That Saved Your Life

Book Review by Tim Footman, Tangents, 2002

THERE'S MORE THAN one way to string a Strat, and there are several ways to tell the story of a band. The most obvious is ...

Robert Milliken: Lillian Roxon, Mother Of Rock

Book Review by Clinton Walker, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 2002

ROCK JOURNALISM is, of course, the lowest of the low. Trust me, I know. It has recently enjoyed improved profile with films like High Fidelty ...

Another Badass Blue-Gum White Man: Essays Honoring STANLEY BOOTH On The Occasion Of His 60th Birthday

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Rock's Backpages, January 2002

"What matters most is how well you walk through the fire." - Charles Bukowski ...

Being My Almost Absolutely True Adventures with Stanley Booth

Essay by David Dalton, Rock's Backpages, January 2002

The South, sir, is no more than the Creation viewed by a crocodile.– Rev. Sydney Smith I ADMIT I don't know what ...

From the Archives: Alan Light

Interview by Steven Ward, Scott Woods, rockcritics.com, January 2002

THIS SITE TIPS its hat all over the place to people who write about pop music, but perhaps not enough has been said about the ...

The Rolling Stones: If You Want To Know Anything, Ask Stanley: A Memoir

Memoir by Tina McElroy Ansa, David Sandison, Chris Wohlwend, Rock's Backpages, January 2002

David Sandison handled PR for the Rolling Stones when Stanley Booth went on the road with them in 1969. ...

Losin' His Mind in Detroit Rock City: Gary Graff

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, January 2002

GARY GRAFF FIRST earned his reputation in the mid-'80s as the in-house music critic for the Detroit Free Press, a stint that terminated a decade ...

The Rolling Stones: Rolling Away the Stones: Stanley and I

Essay by Michael Lydon, Rock's Backpages, January 2002

Michael Lydon was the other reporter on the infamous Rolling Stones' 1969 tour of America. This is his recollection of meeting Stanley Booth, and the ...

The Last of the Voodoos: A Rock & Roll Retrospective

Essay by Kandia Crazy Horse, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, January 2002

This essay was originally published in NYU Africanist Manthia Diawara’s Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire [Vol.3, No.2, Spring 2001]. Since the very weird period when I wrote ...

Mary Chapin Carpenter/Anne Lamott: Royce Hall, UCLA

Live Review by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 28 January 2002

THE PAIRING OF author and singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter at UCLA's Royce Hall on Saturday could have gone any number of ways. ...

From Hard Rock to Rock of Ages: Former Hit Parader Writer, Father Charley Crespo

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, February 2002

BACK IN THE '70s and '80s, Charley Crespo frequented the rock clubs of New York and New Jersey gathering info for his fan-obsessed dispatches for ...

Chuck E… So Addictive: Voice Music Editor in His Second rockcritics.com Interview

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, March 2002

ROCK CRITIC Chuck Eddy. Love or hate? Let us count the ways… ...

Almost Unknown: How Lloyd Cole Knew My Father, the British counterpart to Almost Famous, came into being

Report by David Quantick, Rock's Backpages, 9 March 2002

THERE ARE many differences between Britain and America – they like Hootie and the Blowfish, for example, and we like Chas and Dave; their milk ...

Nick Hornby (2002)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mark Pringle, Rock's Backpages audio, 13 March 2002

High Fidelity author Hornby picks his Top Ten tracks, from Bruce Springsteen's 'Thunder Road' to Steve Earle's 'Telephone Road'.

File format: mp3; file size: 54.9mb, interview length: 59' 59" sound quality: ***

Roy Hollingworth, 1949-2002

Obituary by Chris Welch, The Independent, 22 March 2002

Roy Hollingworth, journalist, singer, guitarist and composer: born Derby 12 April 1949; married 1999 Anthea Yeomans; died Kingston upon Thames, Surrey 9 March 2002. ...

Roy Hollingworth, 1949-2002

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 22 March 2002

Colourful critic who embarked on a mission to become a rock star. ...

About a Bloke: The 10 Tracks Nick Hornby Couldn't Live Without

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mark Pringle, Rock's Backpages, 29 March 2002

WELCOME TO a new if occasional treat: AURAL SURVIVAL, a sit-down with a much-loved CELEBRITY FAN in order to ascertain the 10 recorded performances he ...

Mark Anthony Neal: Soul Babies – Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (Psychology Press)

Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Village Voice, 2 April 2002

Generation Hiphop's Aesthetics ...

Give Up The Day Job!: Scribes turned Stars, Poachers Turned Gamekeepers!

Guide by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 12 April 2002

This week, a propos of nothing in particular – the new Pet Shop Boys album, perhaps? – we consider the careers of the many ...

Lester Bangs: Pills And Thrills

Retrospective by Nick Kent, The Guardian, 12 April 2002

ALTHOUGH HIS NAME is already starting to be listed among the ranks of the elite late 20th-century literary trailblazers, Lester Bangs – the fragile-hearted, drunken ...

What is Rock Criticism?

Comment by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, 12 April 2002

Why do writers pursue this often-thankless "profession"? ...

And So It Began: Remembering the First Issue of Crawdaddy!

Book Excerpt by Paul Williams, 'The Crawdaddy! Book' (Hal Leonard), May 2002

THE FIRST ISSUE of the first American rock music magazine was printed on Sunday, January 30, 1966, in a basement in Brooklyn, New York, on ...

Simon Frith: An Interview

Interview by Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever, May 2002

Depending on how you see music journalism, Simon Frith is either a sinner or a saint. After the late '60's, rock criticism began to show ...

Warren Zevon: A Literary Answer to Lyricist's Block

Report and Interview by Marc Weingarten, Los Angeles Times, 16 May 2002

Musician/bookworm Warren Zevon recruits famous authors for lyrics on a new album. ...

Neil Young: Bio Warfare: Why did Neil Young try to squelch Shakey?

Comment by Marc Weingarten, salon.com, 24 May 2002

SHAKEY, A 786-PAGE biography of Neil Young that's just been published, almost wasn't. For that reason, it serves as an apt metaphor for the way ...

Rolling Stone's Nathan Brackett Snubs Breakfast Reviews, Predicts Klezmer Kraze

Interview by Jason Gross, rockcritics.com, June 2002

Perfect Sound Forever founder/editor Jason Gross interviews Rolling Stone's reviews editor. ...

Blue Öyster Cult: Rock Criticism as Brain Surgery: Deborah Frost Looks Back

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, June 2002

MUSICIAN/SONGWRITER Deborah Frost took a little break in the early '70s from a gig with an all-girl band that lasted until the early '90s. ...

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 ...

Muddy Waters: Robert Gordon: Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters (Jonathan Cape)

Book Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, July 2002

The ONE-ROOM shack where Muddy Waters grew up originally stood on the edge of Stovall's plantation in Coahoma County in the Mississippi Delta. A few ...

Timothy White 1952-2002

Obituary by Chris Charlesworth, The Guardian, July 2002

IN HIS POLKA-DOT bow tie, cream chinos and white buckskin shoes, Timothy White, who has died aged 50, cut a stylish figure in a profession ...

Grateful Dead: Dennis McNally: A Long Strange Trip – The inside history of the Grateful Dead (Broadway Books)

Book Review by Will Hermes, The New York Times, 25 August 2002

Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead ...

Out of His Pen: The Words of Richard Williams

Interview by Simon Warner, rockcritics.com, September 2002

IN U.S. CULTURE, the rock critic is valued, even venerated. From Lester Bangs to Dave Marsh, from Ben Fong-Torres to Greil Marcus, the voices that ...

Ginsberg's Flannel And Other Stories

Book Review by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 12 October 2002

In the Sixties, Barry Miles, 322pp, Jonathan Cape, £17.99 ...

John Coltrane: Ashley Kahn: A Love Supreme – The creation of John Coltrane's classic album

Book Review by Nick Coleman, The Independent, 23 October 2002

Hot sax and religion in New Jersey ...

Epiphanies

Memoir by Richard Cook, The Wire, November 2002

Well, there are worse ways of making a living. Richard Cook tells how a compulsive jones for collecting records — only partly sated by music ...

Ken Nordine: Speak Memory

Profile and Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, November 2002

Ken Nordine is the laird of language, the maestro of the monologue, the wizard of word jazz. Bill DeMain lends an ear. ...

Pop and the Press

Book Review by Simon Warner, Rock's Backpages, November 2002

Simon Warner peruses a fresh academic take on rock journalism ...

Mogwai, Primal Scream, The Shop Assistants, The Wedding Present: 96 Tears

Retrospective by Tim Footman, Tangents, December 2002

I FELT A RUSH of nostalgically bad haircuts and Proustian army surplus anoraks while reading Alistair [Flitchett]'s consideration of C86. Nostalgia also for the days ...

Birthdays of the Cool?

Essay by Simon Warner, Rock's Backpages, December 2002

Simon Warner on Dazed & Confused at 10 – and The Wire at 20! ...

Publish and be Damned: The Decline and Fall of the UK Music Press

Overview by Paul Gorman, slantmagazine.com, Summer 2002

WHAT’S UP WITH the music press? The once proud sector of the British media, created from the unholy union of the 60s underground and the ...

Penny Valentine 1943 - 2003

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 13 January 2003

Richard Williams mourns "probably the first woman to write about pop music as though it really mattered". Below, some examples of what made Valentine such ...

The Beatles: Fandom of the pop era

Retrospective by Bob Stanley, The Times, 14 January 2003

As we bid farewell to Beatles Monthly, our writer discusses how fanzines come and go - but they have always been vital to the music. ...

On Lloyd Cole Knew My Father

Review by Simon Warner, Rock's Backpages, February 2003

"WHAT WOULD entice social misfits from provincial hellholes like, say, Northampton, Wigan and Exmouth to join the world of sex, drugs, travel and free records ...

The Dixie Hummingbirds: Jerry Zolten: Great God a'Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds – Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music

Book Review by Gene Santoro, The New York Times Book Review, 16 February 2003

THE ''GOSPEL HIGHWAY,'' the church-based circuit toured by black preachers and religious entertainers, was paved largely by segregation, but it also meant to bypass the ...

Nick Hornby: 31 Songs

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 23 February 2003

WE SEEM TO BE in for a heavily-annotated favourites list, rather like the ones that the narrator in Hornby's novel High Fidelity fills his life ...

Rock's Future Pages

Overview by Simon Warner, Rock's Backpages, March 2003

Why new music titles keep coming despite uncertain times. ...

Jimi Hendrix: Paul Williams On Jimi Hendrix

Interview by Mike Mettler, UniVibes, April 2003

WHO'S YOUR Daddy? Think Rolling Stone magazine invented rock criticism? Think again. ...

Hail, Hail, Rock'n'Roll Writing!

Comment by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 9 May 2003

This month, Bloomsbury – the home of rockin' Harry Potter – publishes The Sound & the Fury: A Rock's Backpages Reader, a selection of seminal ...

George Wein: Myself Among Others – A Life in Music

Book Review by Gene Santoro, The Nation, 26 June 2003

NOT MANY PEOPLE can say they changed the world and make it stick. In Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, George Wein does. Without ...

Jimi Hendrix: Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience by Greg Tate (Lawrence Hill)

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, July 2003

Erudite, eclectic and pungently demotic polemic on Hendrix's centrality in the 20th century African-American cultural pantheon. ...

Ian MacDonald: The People's Music - Selected Journalism (Pimlico)

Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Observer, July 2003

BROADLY SPEAKING there are three kinds of British rock writers: boring ones, brash ones, and genuinely bright ones. Somehow it's typical of our anti-intellectual culture ...

Phil Spector, Radiohead: Steven Wells On Rock Snobs

Column by Steven Wells, playlouder.com, 2 August 2003

The The Stages Of Pop-Man ...

Lester Bangs: My Black Pages: Lester Bangs' Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste

Book Review by Don Waller, LA CityBeat, 21 August 2003

BACK FROM THE dead and bigger than ever! As a writer – hell, more importantly, as a reader – the Editorial We wuz turnin' cataleptic ...

Ian MacDonald, 1948-2003

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 8 September 2003

PROBABLY NO other critic – not even the late William Mann of The Times, with his famous mention of pandiatonic clusters – contributed more to ...

Lester Bangs: Joy And Rage Of A Dishevelled Rock Critic

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 23 September 2003

Mainlines, Blood Feasts And Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader Lester Bangs; ed. John Morthland (Serpent's Tail; £9.99) ...

Revelations In The Head: Ian MacDonald 1948-2003

Obituary by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 24 September 2003

THE NEWS THAT Ian MacDonald has taken his own life comes as a terrible shock, both to the colleagues who knew him and to the ...

Vibe: the Hip-Hop Years

Retrospective and Interview by Angus Batey, The Times, 23 October 2003

For more than 20 years, hip-hop culture has shaped the face of popular music, fashion, even political debate. And for the past decade, Vibe magazine ...

Gathering Moss: The Fossilisation of Rolling Stone

Comment by Tim Footman, Rock's Backpages, November 2003

BILLY JOEL? Billy fucking Joel??? ...

Morrissey: Mark Simpson: Saint Morrissey

Book Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 16 November 2003

Former World's Biggest Smiths Fan Simon Price checks his credentials against a passionately provocative analysis of Morrissey's art. ...

Sting: Broken Music

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 16 November 2003

AROUND THE TIME he won his scholarship to Newcastle grammar school, Sting – or Gordon Sumner as he was then known – witnessed his mother ...

Devo: Jade Dellinger & David Giffels: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!

Book Review by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, December 2003

DEPENDING ON which side of the critical fence you were standing at the time, '70s art rock group Devo from Akron, Ohio were either "the ...

Julian Cope: The Missing Link

Profile and Interview by William Shaw, The Word, December 2003

A thin evolutionary strand connects the forgotten sounds of the psychedelic North and a meticulous chronicle of megalithic Europe. It's Julian Cope, a man whose ...

The Rolling Stones: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood: According to the Rolling Stones

Book Review by Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Review of Books, 21 December 2003

ONE DAY ABOUT 40 years ago, the Rolling Stones found themselves ogling the Beatles' tour van, regally parked outside Royal Albert Hall. "It was covered ...

David Bowie and the Media

Retrospective by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, 2004

A WHIFF OF hedonism lingered amid the dense fog of cigarette smoke inside the top floor suite of Detroit's luxurious Ponchartrain hotel. David Bowie sighed, ...

John Lydon: Lydon and I

Book Excerpt by Paul Wellings, 'I'm a Journalist...Get Me Out of Here!', 2004

I BLUFFED my way into journalism and am still bluffing in the PR world. If the truth were told, most journalists are bluffers to some ...

Robert Plant: The Secret Life Of Plant

Interview by Geoff Barton, Classic Rock, January 2004

It's 1982, and Robert Plant is worried. He's just released his first solo album Pictures At Eleven, and he's expecting a critical slating. Led-free reflections ...

The Seventies

Retrospective by Danny Baker, The Word, February 2004

"The Seventies' attitudes, cultures and repercussions are almost too incredible for a modern youth to imagine" By Danny Baker ...

John Holmstrom: Floating in a bottle of formaldehyde 

Interview by Jeffrey Morgan, Detroit Metro Times, 4 February 2004

EVER SINCE R. F. Outcault's irreverent creation, The Yellow Kid, first appeared as an incidental character in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World on Feb. 16, ...

Nik Cohn and Guy Peellaert: Rock Dreams (Taschen)

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Observer, 22 February 2004

Charles Shaar Murray sees the Rolling Stones lose their minds – as well as their trousers – in a classic work of the imagination. ...

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 Beatles, Danger Mouse: More Than Words: Musings on Music Journalism — Life Goes On

Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 10 March 2004

FEBRUARY 24 WAS a banner day for the Copy Left, a loose network of computer activists, intellectuals, forward-thinking musicians and zealous fans who continue to ...

Losing Face

Retrospective and Interview by Kathryn Flett, The Observer, 28 March 2004

The Observer's TV critic, Kathryn Flett, was among the first readers of The Face, and later became its features and fashion editor. Here she mourns ...

Ted Nugent: Joseph Lanza: Elevator Music: A surreal history of Muzak, easy listening and other mood song.

Book Review by David Stubbs, Jockey Slut, May 2004

THIS IS A revised edition of a volume first published almost a decade ago. ...

Hugh Masekela and D. Michael Cheers: Still Grazing – The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela

Book Review by Eric Weisbard, The New York Times Book Review, 13 June 2004

IN THE MID-1950s, as Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley and all the rest were leading a rock 'n' roll revolution across America, Hugh Masekela found himself ...

The NME Today

Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2004

"IT'S OUR job to serve the lives of music fans," enthuses Conor McNicholas, editor of the NME, last survivor of the UK's once thriving weekly ...

Is Music Journalism Dead?

Comment by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 30 June 2004

IF EVER there was a time when writing about music felt utterly pointless, that time is now. ...

Patti Smith: The MOJO Interview: Patti Smith

Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, July 2004

Working in a piss factory, breaking her neck on stage,
the "horror" of her armpit
hair. All this plus punk poetry,
tragedy and "gentleman"
Bill Burroughs in the amazing ...

The Pogues: I Remember... (Melody Maker Reminiscences)

Memoir by David Stubbs, mr-agreeable.net, 26 July 2004

I REMEMBER a three month stint in 1986 as a trainee chartered accountant, a profession for which I was ill-suited in every respect except the ...

Razorlight: Johnny Borrell: "I don't even look human"

Interview by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 28 July 2004

He claims to be a better songwriter than Bob Dylan and has likened himself to Charles Dickens. But is there more to Johnny Borrell, the ...

This Is Rebel Music: The Harvey Kubernik InnerView: Part One

Interview by Gary Pig Gold, fufkin.com, September 2004

"If there is a secret history of LA's music scene – the real dirt, the telling minutiae, the diseased spirit of the place – then ...

This Is Rebel Music: The Harvey Kubernik InnerView: Part Two

Interview by Gary Pig Gold, fufkin.com, October 2004

"THIS EXTRAORDINARY ASSEMBLAGE of interviews by journalist and record producer Harvey Kubernik is, as Brian Wilson's blurb on the back cover says, "inside stuff." It's ...

The Beatles, Bob Dylan: Al Aronowitz: The Man Who Invented the '60s

Profile and Interview by Gary Pig Gold, Cosmik Debris, October 2004

Gary "Pig" Gold meets the Man Who Invented the Sixties. ...

Who Put The Bomp? Why, Greg Shaw, Of Course!

Obituary by Gary Pig Gold, torpedopop.com, October 2004

ACCOLADES AND AWARDS are being tossed around far too indiscriminately these days, wouldn’t you agree? Especially within the, uh, Wonderful World of Entertainment. I mean, ...

Dave Godin: Champion of Black Music who coined the term "Northern Soul"

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 20 October 2004

WHEN THE MUSICIANS and singers of the first Motown Revue – the Miracles, the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, "Little" Stevie Wonder and Earl Van ...

Hawkwind: Ian Abrahams: Hawkwind – Sonic Assassins

Book Review by John Doran, Classic Rock, November 2004

PSYCH-ROCK visionaries Hawkwind have undeniably one of the most interesting stories in rock: paranoia, madness, drugs, fatal road accidents, not to mention startlingly inventive music ...

Ye Revenge Of Ye Mobbe

Overview by Caitlin Moran, The Word, December 2004

For centuries celebrities have loomed large in our pub-time fairytales. Now electronic media has made our thirst for gossip insatiable. Well at least that's what ...

Bob Dylan, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Robbie Williams: The Holy and Sacred thoughts of His Bobness

Book Review by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 11 December 2004

THE GREATEST music book this year, of course, is Bob Dylan's Chronicles, Vol. 1 (Simon & Schuster, £16.99; offer £13.39) — a cultural event so notable ...

Remembering Ralph J. Gleason

Retrospective by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 23 December 2004

NOTE: I’ve never done a more personal piece of journalism. Ralph was a distant figure on my horizon, but his presence surrounded me; from reading ...

Hail Hail The Bangs All Here Department: Lester Bangs' Lost Letters To MAD

Memoir by Jeffrey Morgan, Fun House, 2005

EDITORIAL NOTE: For the gullible out there, this "memoir" of Morgan's may not be 100% true. It was originally published in slightly different form a ...

Bill Nelson: My Bizarre Double Life In The Pop World Of The Eighties

Memoir by Beverley Glick, beverleyglick.com, 2005

After a small ripple of public demand, I'm going to start posting a series of extracts from my unpublished memoir Hit Girl: My Bizarre Double Life ...

Spandau Ballet's Bible: How I Played My Part in Inventing the New Romantics

Memoir by Beverley Glick, beverleyglick.com, 2005

Here is the second extract from my memoir Hit Girl: My Bizarre Double Life in the Pop World of the Eighties. It is September 1980 and, ...

The Sex Pistols: Children In The Mire: A Reading Of Bangs, Marcus And The Sex Pistols, part 1

Essay by Michael Baker, Perfect Sound Forever, January 2005

"THE DOMAIN OF the theater is not psychological but plastic and physical. And it is not a question of whether the physical language of theater ...

The Sex Pistols: Children in the Mire: Bangs, Marcus, and the Sex Pistols, Part II – Polly

Essay by Michael Baker, Perfect Sound Forever, January 2005

The hot night makes us keep our bedroom windows open.Our magnolia blossoms. Life begins to happen. My hopped up husband drops his home disputes, and ...

Doing justice to Smash Hits

Report and Interview by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 21 February 2005

The once-great tongue-in-cheek music press has gone, but its spirit lives on. ...

Hunter S Thompson: Rock of Rages

Comment by Andrew Mueller, The Guardian, 26 February 2005

FOLLOWING HUNTER S THOMPSON'S suicide, many obituarists, looking for a representative snippet of the Doctor's bug-eyed vitriol, served up the following trenchant assessment of the ...

Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling at the Moon (Abacus Books)

Review by Mark Pringle, Rock's Backpages, 4 March 2005

THERE IS AN immutable law of Recovery that states that the man with the loudest voice (and it usually is a man) will consume great ...

And Now, For Something Completely Different

Comment by Mark Kemp, Creative Loafing, 11 May 2005

HAVING SERVED as The Charlotte Observer's entertainment editor for the past two and a half years, I've often picked up the latest issue of Creative ...

Van Morrison: Johnny Rogan: Van Morrison – No Surrender (Secker & Warburg)

Book Review by David Sinclair, The Guardian, 28 May 2005

Johnny Rogan supplies everything you wanted to know about Van Morrison – and even more that you didn't. David Sinclair digests an almost comically unflattering ...

Bob Dylan: Greil Marcus: Like a Rolling Stone

Book Review by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, June 2005

POP MUSIC turned out not to be quite as disposable as was first thought. Not only is it still going, in modulated, increasingly moribund form, ...

Richard Hell (2005)

Interview by Richard Cabut, Rock's Backpages audio, 23 June 2005

The former Voidoid talks at length about his latest novel, Godlike: the provocative nature of the material; the politics of identity and political correctness, poetry. He also reflects on his '70s self; why he left music, and how his new compilation CD, Spurts: the Richard Hell Story, draws a line under his life as a musician.

File format: mp3; file size: 43.2mb, interview length: 47' 13" sound quality: ** (phoner)

ABC, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock, Heaven 17, The Human League: Martin Lilleker: Beats Working For A Living – Sheffield Popular Music 1973-1984 (Juma)

Book Review by Rob Young, The Wire, July 2005

PRACTICALLY EVERY city in Britain has a roster of musical hod carriers with appalling names. This exhaustive history of Sheffield's music scene is crammed with ...

Bob Dylan: Sam Shepard: The Rolling Thunder Logbook

Book Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, July 2005

30th anniversary reprint for a bizarre chronicle of the infamous Dylan tour. ...

Peter Shapiro: Turn the Beat Around

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 17 July 2005

GIVEN ITS frivolous image and naff rituals – fright wigs and flares, revolving glitterballs and girls dancing around their handbags – a serious book about ...

The Beach Boys: An Interview With Dominic Priore: Good Things Come To Those Who SmiLE, part 1

Interview by Gary Pig Gold, fufkin.com, August 2005

Gary Pig Gold climbs into the Virtual Sandbox ...

The Pop Group, Public Image Ltd, Scritti Politti, Wire: Simon Reynolds: Rip It Up and Start Again – Post-Punk 1978-84 (Faber)

Book Review by Andy Beckett, London Review of Books, September 2005

IN JANUARY 1978, the Sex Pistols, then and now the most famous punk band in the world, split up. Johnny Rotten, the band's singer, most ...

Patti Smith: Dome, Brighton

Live Review by Everett True, Plan B, October 2005

HOW COOL IS this intoxication? She struts onstage dressed like a goddamn old-fashioned rock'n'roll star in her man's jacket and dirty boots. She pirouettes a ...

Bob Houston, 1939-2005

Obituary by Dave Laing, The Guardian, 14 October 2005

A writers' champion, he spanned rock, royalty and robust trade unionism. ...

Marvin Gaye: Divided Soul: The Life Of Marvin Gaye

Book Review by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2005

DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY of the Trouble Man ...

The Beatles: Revolutionaries, Eight Days a Week: New Beatles books

Book Review by Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Review of Books, 4 December 2005

IN THE LATE summer of 1963, with Beatlemania sweeping into every corner of the British Isles, a reporter approached Paul McCartney for his thoughts on, ...

Nik Cohn: Triksta – Life and Death and New Orleans Rap

Book Review by Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent, 9 December 2005

JUST AFTER THE first printing of this iconic writer's account of his cultural and musical misadventures in an iconic city, the situation changed almost beyond ...

Nik Cohn: Triksta – Life and Death and New Orleans Rap

Book Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 11 December 2005

Nik Cohn tells how the alienation and anger of New Orleans exploded into a whole new genre of hip hop in his best book yet. ...

The Byrds, Gene Clark: John Einarson: Mr. Tambourine Man – The Life and Legacy of the Byrds' Gene Clark by John Einarson (Backbeat)

Book Review by Bill Wasserzieher, Ugly Things, Summer 2005

GENE CLARK of the Byrds was many things - a charismatic stage presence in a '60s band that became an American icon; a gifted and ...

Neil Young: Jimmy McDonough: Shakey - Neil Young's Biography

Book Review by Craig W. Thomas, Rock's Backpages, Fall 2005

INTO MY HOLIDAY knapsack this year I tucked a biography of Lowell George that a friend had lent me, and I picked it up on ...

Iain McIntyre: Tomorrow is Today: Australia in the Psychedelic Era, 1966-1970

Book Review by Clinton Walker, Rolling Stone (Australia), 2006

IAIN MCINTYRE'S first book, 2004's Wild About You!, was unfortunately a very limited edition, published by – of all people – the Community Radio Federation ...

Allen Ginsberg: The Adventures Of The Imagination: Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish

Sleeve notes by Harvey Kubernik, Water Records, 2006

IN A PARIS CAFÉ in November 1957, Allen Ginsberg began the initial notations for Kaddish. In Ginsberg: A Biography, by longtime friend and author Barry ...

Nik Cohn: Rock Dreamer

Interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, January 2006

He inspired Townshend and Bowie to create Tommy and Ziggy Stardust, wrote the article that became Saturday Night Fever and penned the greatest pop book ...

Sam Cooke: Peter Guralnick: Dream Boogie – The Triumph of Sam Cooke (Little, Brown)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 January 2006

SAM COOKE WAS the first black American pop superstar. By 1962, the year of his biggest British hit, 'Twistin' the Night Away', he was the ...

Phil Elwood, 1926-2006

Obituary by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 January 2006

Beloved Bay Area jazz and blues critic ...

Curt Boettcher, Alex Chilton, Gene Clark, Elvis Costello, Dexys Midnight Runners, Dion, Fred Neil, Jack Nitzsche, Shuggie Otis, Gram Parsons, The Stooges, Hal Willner: The Rock Snob's Dictionary: An Introduction

Book Excerpt by David Kamp, Broadway Books, February 2006

2021 AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was written in 2005 and does not entirely hold up today. (But most of it does.) ...

Farewell, Smash 'Makes Mash' Hits

Obituary by Pete Paphides, The Times, 3 February 2006

Paying tribute to the mag that had its finger on the pulse, but now has no pulse at all ...

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. ...

The Thick of Hip: Touré's Never Drank the Kool-Aid

Book Review by Angus Batey, The Times, 25 February 2006

WRITING ABOUT MUSIC, Elvis Costello once remarked, is like dancing about architecture. If that were true, writing about hip hop, with its inherent wordiness, its ...

The Press Gang:: Music Journalists (AKA: Sleeping With The Enemy)

Overview by Jon Stewart, Guitarist, March 2006

Jon Stewart talks to the enemy, music journalists, and finds out what makes them tick... ...

Willie Nelson: Graeme Thomson: Willie Nelson – The Outlaw

Book Review by Adam Sweeting, Daily Telegraph, 9 March 2006

MANY RECORDING artists have flirted with cowboy-chic, from the Eagles with their "gunfighter" album Desperado to Jon Bon Jovi preposterously claiming to be "Wanted Dead ...

John Robb: Punk Rock – An Oral History (Ebury Press)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 19 March 2006

WHAT IS THERE still to say, really, about the British punk rock movement? As this year marks the 30th anniversary of its uproarious debut in ...

The Clash, Joe Strummer: Chris Salewicz: Redemption Song – the Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer (Harper Collins)

Book Review by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, May 2006

IN 1980 – following the triumphant release of the London Calling album and during the recording of what would become Sandinista! – the Clash had ...

The Beatles: Bob Spitz: The Beatles – The Biography (Aurum Press)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 May 2006

WITH ITS BIBLICAL length and its epigraph from that underused pop pundit, Plato — "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the ...

The Byrds, Crosby Stills and Nash, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa: Michael Walker: Laurel Canyon

Book Review by Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Review of Books, 7 May 2006

UP LAUREL CANYON Boulevard at the corner of Lookout Mountain there sits a walled-in postage stamp of lawn and trees. It's a prime slice of ...

Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Jimi Hendrix: Joe Boyd: White Bicycles – Making Music in the 1960s (Serpent's Tail)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 14 May 2006

THIS PROTEIN-PACKED memoir entwines a number of stories that reach well beyond the subtitle's modest brief. At one level it's a boy's own adventure. Joe ...

Lester Bangs, Big Star: Great Lig in the Sky: The 1973 Rock Writers Convention

Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, June 2006

ON MEMORIAL DAY weekend in May 1973, over a hundred of the leading rock writers of the day flew into Memphis, Tennessee, for 72 hours ...

Al Aronowitz: Bob Dylan And The Beatles: Volume One Of The Best Of The Blacklisted Journalist (1st Books Library)

Book Review by Christine Natanael, crushermagazine.com, August 2006

THIS IS A review that has been very, very hard to write. Not because the 600-page collection of columns, essays, random thoughts and photos is ...

Bob Marley & the Wailers: Christopher John Farley: Before The Legend – The Rise of Bob Marley (Amistad)

Book Review by Miles Marshall Lewis, The Washington Post, 20 August 2006

The early years of a reggae superstar who gained worldwide renown. ...

Greil Marcus: The Shape of Things to Come – Prophecy and the American Voice

Book Review by Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Review of Books, 3 September 2006

IN THE relatively short history of rock criticism, the 1975 appearance of Greil Marcus' first book, Mystery Train, was an explosion as unexpected and indelible ...

Dominic Sandbrook: White Heat – A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties

Book Review by Nicky Charlish, Culture Wars, 5 September 2006

THE IDEA OF the '60s as an era of exciting change for everyone has remained more or less the accepted orthodoxy – until now. Few ...

Howard Sounes: Seventies – The Sights, Sounds and Ideas of a Brilliant Decade

Book Review by Nicky Charlish, Culture Wars, 21 September 2006

AMUSINGLY STUPID, vulgar, a time of endearingly foolish fashions. These views – according to the book's author – represent the consensus thinking of cultural pundits ...

An Open Letter to Jann Wenner

Comment by Michael Simmons, Huffington Post, 18 October 2006

Dear Jann, We both know that Rolling Stone – the magazine you founded and remain Editor and Publisher of – has been the subject of endless ...

Courtney Love: Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love

Book Review by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 12 November 2006

Make tea, get nose fixed ASAP ...

Stewart Copeland, The Police, Andy Summers: Kings of Pain: Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland

Interview by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2006

More than 20 years after the Police split, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland have broken lengthy silences about their time in the band. Terry Staunton ...

Douglas Wolk… Dean of American Comics Critics

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, 2007

THAT TITLE WAS not self-proclaimed by Douglas Wolk. I came up with the unofficial designation as soon as I finished the last page of Wolk's ...

Richard Brautigan, Mad River: Just Like a Poem: Richard Brautigan and Mad River

Retrospective and Interview by David Biasotti, Richard Brautigan (ed. John F. Barber), McFarland, 2007

THOUGH THEY RECORDED two albums for Capitol Records, Mad River remains one of the least-documented and enigmatic Bay Area bands of the late '60s. ...

Read All About It: Rock Books to Live By

Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, Time Out's 1000 Books To Save Your Life, 2007

YOU'D THINK I'd be able to write about rock books in my sleep. But of course the task is dreadfully daunting, "rock" now being an ...

Strumming, Picking, and Shredding: An Oral History of Guitar Player Part 3: Steven Rosen

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, 2007

STEVEN ROSEN is a professional music journalist with a career spanning thirty years. During this period he has published well over 700 articles appearing in ...

Joe Boyd: The Music Man

Report and Interview by Andria Lisle, Memphis Flyer, 15 February 2007

Legendary producer Joe Boyd hits Memphis. ...

Arcade Fire: Why the Arcade Fire are molten hot

Comment by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 20 February 2007

Two weeks until Neon Bible hits the shops and the hype has hit Arctic Monkeys levels. But where are the sceptical critics to keep the ...

The kids are all right: Jon Savage's Teenage – The Creation of Youth

Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 14 April 2007

Andy Beckett enjoys Jon Savage's compelling and meticulous prehistory of adolescence, Teenage. ...

Warren Zevon: Crystal Zevon's Story: Warren from A to Z

Interview by Fred Schruers, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2007

Through interviews and diaries, the musician's ex-wife chronicles the hedonistic life of one of the genre's bad boys. ...

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? ...

Richard Cook (1957-2007)

Obituary by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 27 August 2007

THE DEATH of Richard Cook at the age of 49 robs us of one of the finest writers UK music journalism has produced. He was ...

Richard Cook 1957-2007: Friends and Colleagues Pay Tribute

Obituary by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, September 2007

The great jazz and rock writer, who died on August 25, 2007, is remembered by those who worked with him at NME and Sounds. ...

Madonna: For the first time, her friends and lovers speak out

Retrospective by Lucy O'Brien, Independent on Sunday, 2 September 2007

How did a destitute dance student become the princess of pop? ...

Richard Cook, 1957 2007

Obituary by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 September 2007

IF WRITING ABOUT music is like dancing about architecture, then Richard Cook, who died of cancer last week at 49, was the Norman Foster of ...

Eric Clapton, George Harrison: Pattie Boyd with Penny Junor: Wonderful Tonight – George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me (Harmony Books)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 19 September 2007

SHE IS PERHAPS rock's most famous muse: Pattie Boyd Harrison Clapton. This lithe, leggy, blonde fashion model directly inspired a troika of classic rock's most ...

Cathi Unsworth: The Singer

Book Review by Nicky Charlish, Culture Wars, 24 September 2007

POPULAR MUSIC is, by its very nature, ephemeral. So are its singers. Every rock or pop record that makes it to the charts is a ...

Jools Holland: Barefaced Lies and Boogie Woogie Boasts (Michael Joseph)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 October 2007

FOR JOOLS Holland, autobiography is a rigorously selective business. ...

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 ...

Patti Smith: What does Arthur Rimbaud, the enfant terrible of French symbolism, have in common with Patti Smith?

Report and Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 18 October 2007

MOST PEOPLE'S MINDS, as they enter their sixties, probably turn to thoughts of retirement and a sedate glide along the gentle lower slopes of life's ...

A Love From Outer Space: Why Greg Tate Matters

Essay by Michael A. Gonzales, Blackadelic Pop, 25 October 2007

THIS MORNING, I couldn't write. Though I'm on deadline to finish a Village Voice critique about my favorite band Apollo Heights (whose disc White Music ...

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 ...

Eric Clapton, Guns N' Roses, Joy Division, Slash: Music books: the most debauched tales of rock'n'roll excess

Book Review by Ben Thompson, The Independent, 16 December 2007

HOW BETTER to salve the pangs of remorse induced by a season of over-indulgence than by voraciously consuming the reminiscences of those whose lifestyles make ...

GTR, Billy Joel: A Creem editor remembers…

Book Excerpt by Bill Holdship, 'America's Only Rock 'N' Roll Magazine', 2008

THERE ARE loads of CREEM stories to tell, such as the time I answered the editorial phone and Billy Joel was on the other end, ...

Ray Topping, 1943-2008

Obituary by Mike Atherton, unpublished, 2008

RAY TOPPING, who has died aged 65, was arguably the world's foremost researcher of and authority on rock'n'roll and blues. ...

Sour CREEM: The life, death, and strange resurrection of America's only rock 'n' roll magazine, Part 1

Retrospective by Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times, 16 January 2008

ALMOST FAMOUS was probably the big bang that finally pushed it over the top. Doesn't matter that director Cameron Crowe — a former CREEM and ...

CREEMed: The life, death, and strange resurrection of America's only rock 'n' roll magazine, Part 2

Retrospective by Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times, 23 January 2008

Last week, we examined the Detroit origins and early history of CREEM, "America's Only Rock 'N' roll Magazine." This week, we take a look at ...

Joe Jackson: Still Looking Sharp

Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, March 2008

David Burke catches a rare sighting of pop music's invisible man. ...

Jack White, The Raconteurs: Jacks White: Is Jack White Trying To Kill Music Journalism?

Comment by David Bennun, The Guardian, 18 March 2008

The new Raconteurs album is to be released without pre-publicity. Is this a gesture of fairness to the fans, or an attempt to silence the ...

Ed Sanders: The American Bard Takes On Katrina

Essay by Michael Simmons, Huffington Post, 1 April 2008

THERE IS A GIANT in our midst and his name is Edward Sanders. Ed was born in 1939 in Kansas City, Missouri. He moved to ...

Donny Hathaway: Ed Pavlic: Winners Have Yet to Be Announced – A Song for Donny Hathaway (University of Georgia Press)

Book Review by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, 21 April 2008

I'VE SPENT better part of that last 20-years – what seems like a lifetime – trying to write about Donny Hathaway. It's not as though ...

Willie Nelson: Austin, 1972

Book Excerpt by Joe Nick Patoski, Austin Chronicle, 25 April 2008

This is an excerpt from Joe Nick's biography Willie Nelson: An Epic Life, published by Little, Brown and Co. ...

The Electrified Journalist

Essay by Mark Mordue, markmordue.com, 5 May 2008

WHEN I THINK ABOUT rock 'n' roll and my life trying to write about it, my trying to get inside rock 'n' roll through words ...

Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? Ten Years After The Repetitive Beat Generation

Essay by Steve Redhead, Rock's Backpages, July 2008

OVER A decade ago I researched the rise and fall of a British publishing phenomenon – the so called 'cult fiction' of writers like Nicholas ...

Rock, Roll, and Me: Writing the '60s

Memoir by Jane Heil, Forum of World Cultures, 20 July 2008

THE FIFTY or so articles I wrote for Hit Parader and other rock and country magazines are packed away on a high shelf in my apartment. I ...

Julian Cope: Stone me!

Interview by Jon Savage, Observer Music Monthly, 10 August 2008

Julian Cope believes in music made by outsiders for outsiders. Now 50, and still incandescent with his passions for Krautrock and stone circles, he tells ...

Bob Dylan: Suze Rotolo: A Freewheelin' Time – A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties (Aurum Press)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 7 September 2008

SUSAN, OR SUZE, Rotolo was Bob Dylan's first serious girlfriend, and unlike many other characters from his pre-iconic phase she has, up until now, revealed ...

Lyrical Assassin

Comment by Michael Azerrad, Spin, 27 October 2008

For a music critic, being immortalized in song could be the highest compliment...unless the song is a death threat. ...

Rob Partridge (1948-2008)

Special Feature by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, December 2008

Rob Partridge was a true music man – a witty, loyal, and deeply knowledgeable fan whose loss will be felt throughout the UK ...

Flirtations with Chaos: The Life and Work of Robert Palmer

Essay by Anthony DeCurtis, 'Blues & Chaos', 2009

NOTE: This is Anthony DeCurtis' introduction to Blues & Chaos, his 2009 anthology of Bob Palmer's work. * ...

Ian Whitcomb: The Troubadour Of Lost Time

Retrospective and Interview by Kirk Silsbee, Arroyo Monthly, January 2009

POET HOLLY PRADO once observed: "A city either wants you or it doesn't." Ian Whitcomb was a history student at Dublin's Trinity College with ...

The Auteurs, Black Box Recorder, Luke Haines: Luke Haines: Bad Vibes – Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall (Heinemann)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 4 January 2009

ROCK HISTORY, like other sorts, tends to get told from the point of view of victors rather than losers. By popular acclaim, the big winners ...

Steve Knopper: Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

Book Review by Jeff Tamarkin, The Boston Phoenix, 13 January 2009

LIKE ANY GOOD murder mystery, Steve Knopper's Appetite for Self-Destruction keeps the tension high and the action swift as the search for a culprit drags ...

The OZ trial: John Mortimer's finest hour

Memoir by Felix Dennis, The Week, 19 January 2009

The great barrister, novelist and playwright – who died last Friday aged 85 – stood up to and beat the British establishment, recalls a grateful ...

How The Fanzine Refused To Die

Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Guardian, 2 February 2009

Blogs are the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to get your music writing out there — but that hasn't stopped a new generation of writers picking ...

Janis Ian: Society's Child (Tarcher/Penguin)

Review by Roy Trakin, Rock's Backpages, March 2009

I ADMITTEDLY hadn't thought much about Janis Ian lately, even as my good friend Andy Schwartz kept recommending this surprisingly compelling, always-candid autobiography, going so ...

Tommy Hunt: Only Human

Book Review by Mike Atherton, Record Collector, March 2009

WE ALL KNOW Tommy Hunt the former member of star doowop group the Flamingos, the '60s 'Human' hitmaker, the '70s UK 'Loving On The Losing ...

Tom Waits: Barney Hoskyns: Lowside of the Road – A Life of Tom Waits (Faber & Faber)

Book Review by Nick Coleman, The Independent, 1 March 2009

SELF-REVELATION has never come easily to the Los Angeleno songwriter, musician and occasional actor Tom Waits, which is presumably why he writes the kinds of ...

Journalistic Gaffes

Memoir by Leyla Sanai, Rock's Backpages, 5 March 2009

OK, SO ROCK CRITICS are meant to be the epitome of cool, but all writers have embarrassing moments, don't they? What have been the most ...

Mario Panciera: 45 Revolutions

Book Review by Alex Ogg, Rock's Backpages, 20 March 2009

DISCUSSING MUSICAL encyclopaedias recently reminded me of what is probably the ultimate reference work I have ever encountered: Mario Panciera's completely mind-boggling 45 Revolutions. I ...

MC5: Memoirs of rock mentor John Sinclair

Profile and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, The Sunday Times, 29 March 2009

Poet, activist, entrepreneur, critic, journalist, manager of MC5 and kingpin of US punk scene still performing and writing. ...

Elvis Presley, John Lennon: Sympathy for the Devil – A Kind Word for Albert Goldman

Essay by Tom Graves, Rock's Backpages, April 2009

ALBERT HARRY GOLDMAN is inarguably the most controversial music biographer of the last generation. His biographies of first Elvis, then John Lennon, have been spit ...

Liner Notes: Recollections of a Dying Art

Retrospective by Fred Dellar, Rock's Backpages, 17 April 2009

DURING THE LATE '60s I received a fee of seven pounds for supplying my first sleeve note – one that adorned Dizzy Gillespie's Jambo Caribe. ...

New Music News: My Part in IPC's Downfall

Memoir by Mark Williams, Rock's Backpages, 21 April 2009

IN RESPONSE TO an earlier blog, a generous comment from Johnny Black resurrected the ghost of a magazine I thought I'd laid to rest some ...

Creem: Censored by a Futurist!

Memoir by Richard Riegel, Rock's Backpages, 24 April 2009

CREEM SUFFERED ITS first bankruptcy in August 1985, a little over ten years after I'd begun writing regularly for the magazine.   ...

Lester Bangs at Home

Memoir by Richard Riegel, unpublished, May 2009

NOTE: I wrote this mini-memoir for one of the neo-Creem projects of recent years, but it wasn't used. ...

The Rolling Stones: Electric gypsies : Tommy Weber and friends

Book Review by Kandia Crazy Horse, San Francisco Bay Guardian, 6 May 2009

TOMMY WEBER (né Thomas Ejnar Arkner, 1938 — 2006) was a trickster, so I cannot help but love him. ...

All Tomorrow's Parties: Breeders And Fans Strike Back II

Live Review by John Doran, The Quietus, 26 May 2009

I'M MORE appreciative of ATP than usual at the moment (and I'm usually damn appreciative of its quasi-utopian spread of music, guilt-free loafing and social ...

Rage Against the Machine: Steven Wells, 1960-2009

Special Feature by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, June 2009

An august bunch of RBP contributors – friends, colleagues, and plain admirers of the man – pay tribute to an inspired rent-a-gob who died bravely ...

The NME'n'Me

Memoir by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, 5 June 2009

IT'S THURSDAY, 6th July 1972. The Guardian lies on the doormat, its front page torn, as usual. I've questioned the paperboy. He says the slot's ...

Michael Jackson: Ever-So-Slightly Wacko: The Day I Interviewed Michael Jackson (via little sister Janet)

Memoir by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, 15 June 2009

IN JANUARY 1980, the gates of 4641 Hayvenhurst Avenue in Encino were open, unguarded. As I parked, an Alsatian bounded to the car and bared ...

Steve Knopper: Appetite for Self-Destruction – The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age

Book Review by Danny Goldberg, Truthdig, 26 June 2009

STEVE KNOPPER'S Appetite for Self-Destruction is an entertaining, well-written attempt to chronicle the economic decline of record companies, but his thesis echoes conventional wisdom that ...

Steven Wells 1960-2009: A Tribute

Memoir by John Doran, Andrew Mueller, John Robb, Terry Staunton, David Stubbs, The Quietus, 29 June 2009

David Stubbs ...

Speaking Of Dying: R.I.P. Vibe

Comment by Andria Lisle, Memphis Flyer, 2 July 2009

A MERE three years after purchasing the 16-year old Vibe magazine from founder Quincy Jones, the Wicks Group pulled the plug this week, dumping the hip-hop publication on the top ...

Sound of the World: Otro Mundo: An Interview with Charlie Gillett

Report and Interview by Mark Hudson, Daily Telegraph, 15 July 2009

"WHEN I PLAY a new album," says Charlie Gillett, "I want to be surprised, to be completely captivated by the music – the way we ...

The Demise of Vibe and the Future of Criticism

Comment by Mark Anthony Neal, PopMatters, 23 July 2009

THERE'S NO SMALL irony to the fact that the announcement of the folding of Vibe magazine occurred the day after the death of Michael Jackson. ...

Nick Cave: A Rake's Progress: Nick Cave's Death of Bunny Munro

Book Review by Mark Mordue, The Australian Literary Review, August 2009

IS BUNNY MUNRO Nick Cave's version of Willy Loman with a hard on? In The Death of Bunny Munro the Australian rock 'n' roll singer ...

The Magazine Explosion: UK Pop Publications in the '60s

Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Observer, 6 September 2009

IT'S FEBRUARY 1963. The Beatles are No 2 in the charts with 'Please Please Me' and it's time to meet the press. An anonymous reporter ...

The Thrill Of It All: The Advent of MP3 Blogs

Essay by Nick Hornby, Observer Music Monthly, 6 September 2009

MY FIRST NOVEL, High Fidelity, was published in 1995, and shortly afterwards, I embarked upon my first American book tour. I took with me a ...

Leonard Cohen: This story about Leonard Cohen has sex in it

Memoir by Mike Jahn, Rock's Backpages, 22 September 2009

I REMEMBER Leonard Cohen well from the Chelsea Hotel. This story has sex in it. ...

Gimme Some Truth: Music reference works in the digital age

Comment by Alex Ogg, Rock's Backpages, October 2009

REMEMBER WHEN content was king? It was one of the enduring myths of the tech bubble alongside stratospheric growth projections, the paperless office, etc. But ...

Nick Cave: Original Sin

Interview by James Medd, The Word, October 2009

Nick Cave's new fiction hero is a monstrous expression of the male psyche grotesquely obsessed with sex, he tells James Medd. Did he evolve from ...

Imperial Dogs: They Wanna Get Their Poodles In Your Noodles: Imperial Dogs

Retrospective and Interview by Dave Laing (Australia), Rock's Backpages, November 2009

IN RECENT YEARS, as I've hit an age where time fucking flies by, and an entire decade has passed by in what feels like ...

Louis Armstrong: Terry Teachout: Pops – The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong (JR Books)

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 22 November 2009

AS TERRY Teachout makes clear in this terrific biography, the world that Louis Armstrong inhabited was anything but wonderful. It was, for most of his ...

The Feelies: Rick Moody Interviews the Feelies

Interview by Steven R Rosen, Blurt, 10 December 2009

The celebrated novelist and Wingdale Community Singers rocker interviews his favorite band. Blurt takes notes. ...

The 1973 Let It Rock Critics Poll

Retrospective by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, 16 December 2009

THIRTY-SIX YEARS AGO, I polled contributors to and friends of Let It Rock, the monthly magazine I edited: what, I wanted to know, were their ...

Flexipop!'s shameless pop legacy

Retrospective by Tim Lott, The Guardian, 4 February 2010

Trashy, silly and unashamedly puerile, Flexipop! only lasted two years. But, says novelist Tim Lott, who started the magazine, its revolutionary spirit can still be ...

Patti Smith: Promises Fulfilled: Patti Smith: Just Kids

Review and Interview by Bill Holdship, Metro Times, 17 February 2010

LOVE RELATIONSHIPS between great artists have inspired some fine literature throughout history, be it works the artists created for each other during their own lifetimes ...

Spoon: Rough Draft: Spoon's Transference

Review and Interview by Bud Scoppa, Rock's Backpages, 19 February 2010

WHEN I WAS doing A&R late in the previous century, a musician in one of my bands – it might have been Jolene guitarist Dave ...

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 ...

Man of the World: A Rock's Backpages Tribute to Charlie Gillett, 1942-2010

Special Feature by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, March 2010

CHARLIE GILLETT'S contributions to music are far too numerous to be listed here. Briefly, he was the author of the seminal history The Sound Of ...

David Bowie, Iggy Pop: Nick Kent: Once Upon a Life

Memoir by Nick Kent, The Observer, 14 March 2010

In 1972 he was sorting mail in a Sussex post office. Twelve months later he was partying with Led Zeppelin. Here, the hugely influential music ...

Rock Journalist Carol Clerk Broke the Mould

Obituary by Caroline Sullivan, Guardian Unlimited, 19 March 2010

Former Melody Maker news editor Carol Clerk, who died last week, was a role model for female music writers. She loved old-school rock – and ...

Gil Scott-Heron

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 ...

Stevie Wonder: Mark Ribowsky: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered – The Soulful Journey of Stevie Wonder

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 2 May 2010

His charisma is beyond doubt but, as this valiant life reveals, Stevie Wonder is on a different wavelength from everybody else. ...

Paul Edwards: How To Rap – The Art & Science of the Hip-Hop MC (Virgin)

Book Review by Alex Ogg, Rock's Backpages, 17 May 2010

"You want to be able to stand out from the others and just be distinct, period. A lot of shit sounds the same, so when ...

Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth: Byron Coley: An Interview

Interview by Jason Gross, Perfect Sound Forever, June 2010

SITTING ON A back porch in bucolic Western Massachusetts on a gorgeous summer's day, my friend’s adorable little daughter coyly asked, "Wanna see a picture ...

Van Morrison: Greil Marcus: Listening to Van Morrison

Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 6 June 2010

An appreciation of the best bits of Van the Man's career wisely concentrates on the sublime music, not the grouch who made it. ...

Richmond Fontaine: Willy Vlautin: It's only rock'n'roll

Profile and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, July 2010

Devotees of Richmond Fontaine can rest easy: frontman Willy Vlautin's burgeoning reputation as a novelist doesn't portend the demise of the Americana outfit – at ...

Lady Gaga and the New World Order

Comment by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 1 July 2010

Lady Gaga's music videos are undoubtedly elaborate — but is there any truth to one blogger's claims that they are loaded with occult references and ...

Robert Sandall, 1952 2010

Obituary by David Sinclair, The Sunday Times, 21 July 2010

David Sinclair, a friend of Robert Sandall's since the 1970s, remembers the life of the late, great Sunday Times music critic, who died on Tuesday. ...

Ben Folds/Nick Hornby: Lonely Avenue

Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 24 September 2010

WHEN IT WORKS the clever lyrical conceits glow like the criminals you see on helicopter cameras, but it's an uneven affair. ...

"The World's Best Rock Read": Let It Rock magazine 1972-1975

Essay by Dave Laing, Popular Music and Society, October 2010

Introduction THIS ARTICLE IS a case study of an influential British music publication of the 1970s. Let It Rock (hereafter LIR) was a monthly magazine and ...

Blade, KRS-One, Public Enemy, Ruthless Rap Assassins: The hip-hop heritage society

Report and Interview by Angus Batey, The Guardian, 7 October 2010

Why aren't Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and other classic hip-hop acts lovingly reissued in the same way as other genres? Because guardians of rap's ...

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 ...

Keith Richards' Life or How To (Not) Review a Rock God

Comment by Jeff Slate, Examiner.com, 24 November 2010

I WAS LOOKING forward to the review of Keith Richards' new book Life in last Sunday's New York Times. ...

Paul Morley's Showing Off ... Alex Ross

Comment by Paul Morley, The Observer, 12 December 2010

Paul Morley readies himself for a gladiatorial clash of the critics with New Yorker music writer Alex Ross. ...

Chicago: Mobsters, Crime And Jazz: Danny Seraphine's Chicago Story

Review and Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 16 December 2010

FROM THEIR 1967 founding to his unceremonious ouster from the group in 1990, Danny Seraphine provided the pounding backbeat for Chicago, both for the early, ...

Joan As Police Woman: What I Like

Interview by James Medd, The Word, January 2011

Joan As Police Woman aka Joan Wasser, fearsome singer, songwriter and serial collaborator, formerly of Antony & the Johnsons and Jeff Buckley's girlfriend ...

Dan Charnas: The Big Payback – The History of the Business of Hip-Hop

Book Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 4 January 2011

"HERE'S A LITTLE story that must be told," Dan Charnas writes by way of an ironic introduction to his brick-sized epic, quoting a classic rap ...

Woody Guthrie, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters: John Szwed: The Man Who Recorded the World – A Biography of Alan Lomax

Book Review by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 8 January 2011

Richard Williams hails the man who devoted his life to recording the songs and soundscapes of America and beyond. ...

Alan Lomax: John Szwed: The Man Who Recorded The World – A Biography Of Alan Lomax

Book Review by Rob Young, The Wire, February 2011

WHO'D BE A folk song collector? ...

David Bowie, The Clash, Sex Pistols: Kate Simon: An Interview

Interview by Paul Gorman, Paul Gorman Is, 18 February 2011

THERE IS A portrait of David Bowie taken by Kate Simon at Olympic recording studios in Barnes, west London, on January 14, 1974. The photograph ...

Maggoty Lamb goes behind the barricades in Rock Writers' Class War

Comment by Ben Thompson, The Guardian, 23 February 2011

Journalists would have us believe it's public-school leavers v the salt of the earth in the battle of the charts. Is that really the case? ...

Cherry Vanilla: Nymphomaniacs Anonymous

Retrospective and Interview by Rob Hughes, Uncut, March 2011

Whatever happened to the celebrity groupie? Legendary '70s party animal Cherry Vanilla has a few theories. ...

John Storm Roberts: An Appreciation

Memoir by Don Snowden, Rock's Backpages, April 2011

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN more than a bit ambivalent about the whole concept of mentoring, at least when it applies to the music world we run ...

Lennon, Lenin, The Oz Schoolkids Issue And Me

Retrospective by Charles Shaar Murray, The Word, April 2011

In 1970 Charles Shaar Murray answered an ad in furry freak magazine Oz for a bunch of juveniles to edit a Schoolkids issue. Next thing ...

Charlie Haden: Paul Morley On Music: Charlie Haden

Comment by Paul Morley, The Observer, 24 April 2011

Amazon has made critics of us all. But how does that bode for the professional critic? ...

Gil Scott-Heron: 1949-2011

Obituary by James Maycock, The Independent, May 2011

GIL SCOTT-HERON lived a life of two distinct, very different halves – as dissimilar as night and day. Up to his mid-30s, Scott-Heron was a ...

Rock Critic Superpower Summit: Nick Kent meets Greil Marcus

Interview by Nick Kent, The Word, May 2011

On-site action terrorist Nick Kent and stay-at-home scholar Greil Marcus. Would they mesh or clash if The Word brought them together? ...

Sloan: Happy 20th Birthday Sloan: The Band That Most Made Me Want To Write For A Living

Report and Interview by Tom Cox, tom-cox.com, 11 May 2011

ALL WRITERS HAVE an early turning point or moment of encouragement that kicks off their career in earnest, gives them that little extra push to ...

Led Zeppelin: Nick Kent on Led Zeppelin (2011)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 14 May 2011

Legendary NME journalist Nick Kent remembers his days in the orbit of Led Zeppelin: the many highs, and quite a few lows; Peter Grant; Zep v journalists; the sleaze and the gangsters.

File format: mp3; file size: 132.8mb, interview length: 2h 25' 03" sound quality: ****

The Beatles, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor: David Browne: Fire And Rain: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story Of 1970 (Da Capo)

Book Review by Rob Young, The Word, June 2011

AROUND 15 MAY 1970, Neil Young glanced at Time magazine's coverage of the killing of four students at Kent State, grabbed a guitar and within ...

Ellen Willis: Out Of The Vinyl Deeps – Ellen Willis on Rock Music (University of Minnesota Press)

Book Review by Evelyn McDonnell, The New York Times, 10 June 2011

WOODSTOCK WAS A RIP-OFF. Creedence Clearwater Revival eclipsed the Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan struggled with identity. Janis Joplin "was not so much a victim as ...

Gil Scott-Heron: Growing Up With Gil Scott-Heron: In Loving Memory

Memoir by Danny Goldberg, AlterNet, 11 June 2011

GIL SCOTT-HERON'S death last week at the age of 62 stimulated a wave of appreciation from critics and the jazz and hip hop communities who ...

Brian Eno/Rick Holland: Drums Between The Bells

Review by Wyndham Wallace, bbc.co.uk, July 2011

IT'S HARD TO know what's more surprising: the fact a man approaching his mid-60s continues to release groundbreaking music in such quantities that this is ...

The World's Oldest Teenager: Remembering Jane Scott

Obituary by Holly Gleason, Los Angeles Times blogs, 4 July 2011

SHE WAS LIKE Andy Warhol: iconic blond hair set in a most determined pageboy that never moved. That, and red oversized glasses. You couldn't miss ...

Suzi Quatro: Things I Like

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Word, August 2011

Leather-clad pop cat, amateur Soviet historian and Tony Hancock aficionado. Do not disturb between 4 and 6pm.                                                  *   ...

Mary Anne Hobbs: Things I Like

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Word, September 2011

Music-deprived teenager turned DJ, bikini motorcyclist, Raymond Carver fan. Reads Stuart Maconie on repeat. ...

It's Tom Hibbert's World, And We'll Miss It

Memoir by Mark Williams, Rock's Backpages, 13 September 2011

SOMETIMES IT'S impossible not to write in clichés, and this is one of them: There have been too many deaths in my life recently and ...

Kid Koala: "I always wanted to work on The Muppet Show"

Profile and Interview by John Lewis, Metro, 16 September 2011

Musician, cartoonist, graphic novelist, DJ, primary school teacher… Metro meets the many sides of Canadian polymath Kid Koala. ...

Ian McCulloch: Things I Like

Interview by Rob Hughes, The Word, October 2011

Head Bunnyman; admires The Doors' "sea shanties" the lyrics of Shania Twain, the poetry of John Betjeman and the voice of Alan Yentob ...

Paul Nelson: First You Dream, Then You Die

Essay by Joe Carducci, The New Vulgate, October 2011

Author's note: I'm not in the reviewing game at The New Vulgate,but David Lighthourne had introduced me to Paul and told me about Kevin Avery's ...

Ellen Willis: Out of the Vinyl Deeps

Book Review by Maura Johnston, The Village Voice, 5 October 2011

The late New Yorker pop critic and Voice editor's work still vibrates off the page in Out of the Vinyl Deeps. ...

Paul Nelson on Neil Young

Book Excerpt by Kevin Avery, Everything is an Afterthought (Fantagraphics), November 2011

ON APRIL 14, 1983, Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's manager, wrote a letter to Paul: "This is to advise you that we will co-operate with you ...

Paul Nelson: Early Influences

Book Excerpt by Kevin Avery, Everything is an Afterthought (Fantagraphics), November 2011

MUSIC PLAYED A PART IN young Paul's life. "My aunt played piano. I remember hymns very fondly as the first music I ever heard." There ...

Kevin Avery: Everything is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson (Fantagraphics)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Word, December 2011

NOTE: This is a slightly expanded version of the review that ran in The Word. ...

Nik Cohn: Fever Dream

Profile and Interview by Mark Rozzo, The New York Times, 4 December 2011

BARELY A MONTH after his 22nd birthday, the British reporter, novelist and pop critic Nik Cohn hunkered down in a cottage in Connemara, on Ireland's ...

Remembering David Widgery

Memoir by Michael Gray, Michael Gray Outtakes, 2012

IT'S 20 YEARS since the writer, socialist and East End of London doctor David Widgery died prematurely, and I want to join those who have ...

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 ...

Simple Minds: Jim Kerr: The Things I Like

Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Word, February 2012

Simple Mind, Celtic FC supporter, fan of prog and proto-punk. Buys much of his new music via TV ads ...

June Tabor: Things I Like

Guide by Rob Hughes, The Word, February 2012

Folk luminary, former librarian, Anne Briggs acolyte and breadmaker. Well-versed in the history of war. ...

Kent Hartman: The Wrecking Crew – The Inside Story Of Rock And Roll's Best-Kept Secret

Book Review by James Medd, The Word, February 2012

If it's Monday it must be the Beach Boys, Tuesday it's Sinatra. The fantasy life of L.A.'s fabled sessioneers told as soap opera ...

Greil Marcus: A Life In Writing

Profile and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Guardian, 17 February 2012

GREIL MARCUS lives in a newly built, cedar-shingled house on the border between Oakland and Berkeley. ...

The Ghost of Roland Barthes is Suitably Perplexed: NME in the Post-Punk Era

Book Excerpt by Pat Long, Portico Books, March 2012

NOTE: In this excerpt from his History of the NME, published in the UK by Portico, Pat Long chronicles the decline of the world's top ...

Davy Jones, The Monkees: The day I performed for Davy Jones

Memoir by Beverley Glick, Rock's Backpages, 12 March 2012

IN HONOUR OF the late Monkee, I feel compelled to share with you this vignette from my sadly-still-unpublished memoir, Hit Girl: My Bizarre Double Life ...

Remembering Greg Shaw

Memoir by Mark Shipper, Rock's Backpages, April 2012

WELL, I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE. Deep in the back of my head I have this Karmic debt I owe to Greg Shaw for setting ...

Where Did (My) Zeitgeist Go?: A Life in Rock Writing

Comment by Richard Riegel, Rock's Backpages, 18 April 2012

I'VE JUST FINISHED reading Rock and Roll Always Forgets: A Quarter Century of Music Criticism, by my old friend and former Village Voice editor Chuck Eddy, ...

The Rolling Stones: True Adventures with the Rolling Stones: Stanley Booth

Retrospective and Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2012

Fifty years after the band was formed, Stanley Booth, who wrote a book about the infamous American tour of 1969, talks to Mick Brown. ...

Rufus Wainwright: What I Like

Interview by Rob Hughes, The Word, May 2012

Songwriting, film-scoring opera-pop dandy with formative Thomas Hardy habit. Puccini apologist and Family Guy fanatic. ...

Buddy Guy on his autobiography

Interview by Alan Light, MSN.com, June 2012

"A LOT OF people have the blues and don't even know they got it," says Buddy Guy. "But just keep living and you'll figure out ...

Justin Bieber: Overcovering Pop: Are We There Yet?

Comment by Gene Sculatti, Rock's Backpages, June 2012

WHAT have we wrought, us guys and gals who write about pop music? ...

Louise holds a handful of rain...

Retrospective by Richard Riegel, Rock's Backpages, 6 June 2012

VERY GLAD TO see Louise Criscione as the featured rockwriter in the "Almost Famous" spot on RBP's front page this week, as I'd meant to ...

Bruce Springsteen: Marc Dolan: Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock 'n' Roll (Norton)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Chronicle, 15 June 2012

WHILE MOST classic rockers his age are either slowing down, retired or dead, sexagenarian Bruce Springsteen (who might also be called "sexy-genarian" by legions of ...

The Faces

Interview by Alan Light, Relix, July 2012

"WITH THE FACES, you never know what's going to happen." It's a theme that comes up again and again in conversation with Ronnie Wood and ...

EuroRock In Opposition

Retrospective by Archie Patterson, Rock's Backpages, 12 August 2012

ROCK BEGAN in opposition to mainstream culture. The metamorphosis from (black) race music into white rock 'n' roll shook the very foundations of society. It ...

Mick Jagger: Christopher Andersen: Mick – The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger

Book Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 17 August 2012

Christopher Andersen's biography of Mick Jagger is little more than an anthology of juicy gossip. ...

David Cassidy: Puppy Love

Memoir by Ann Moses, Rock's Backpages, 7 September 2012

DAVID CASSIDY WAS first introduced to Tiger Beat readers in the June 1970 issue. He had appeared on TV on Marcus Welby, MD, The F.B.I ...

Joy Division: Peter Hook: Unknown Pleasures – Inside Joy Division

Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 19 September 2012

Andy Beckett on a raw, surprising account of the classic post-punk band ...

Hold the Middle Page, or: My Short Career as Melody Maker's Singles Reviewer

Memoir by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, 26 September 2012

WITH THREE MONTHS of 1978 – the year in which UK singles sales hit an all-time peak – still to go, perhaps the regular writer ...

Bill Sykes: Sit Down, Listen To This! – The Roger Eagle Story/Pat Long: The History Of The NME

Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, October 2012

THE LATE Roger Eagle was an enigma. Born in Oxford into a middle class family during the Second World War, like many others of his ...

David Byrne: How Music Works

Book Review by Michel Faber, The Guardian, 9 November 2012

GIVEN THE VASTNESS of the subject, calling a treatise How Music Works seems intellectually arrogant, but it could also be seen as disarmingly frank, a ...

Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Neil Young: Waging Heavy Peace/Journeys/Psychedelic Pill/live in Seattle

Review by Charles Bermant, Rock's Backpages, 12 November 2012

SIX YEARS AGO, Neil Young brought his CSN buddies through town imploring the country to impeach the president for lying. This week he began the ...

Elvis Presley: Yes, I was in an Elvis Movie!

Memoir by Ann Moses, Rock's Backpages, 23 November 2012

THE FIRST QUESTION whenever I tell someone I was in an Elvis movie is "Which one?" And my answer is usually "Not one of his ...

Pete Townshend, The Who: Pete Townshend: Who I Am – A Memoir (Harper)

Book Review by Robert Dean Lurie, National Review, 20 December 2012

THE INNER FLAP of the dust jacket says it all: "Pete Townshend has some explaining to do." ...

The Village Voice and the Birth of Rock Criticism: Two Excerpts from Writing the Record

Book Excerpt by Devon Powers, University of Massachusetts Press, 2013

1) From the Introduction: "Village" ...

Foo Fighters: Record reviews: Who needs them?

Comment by Ira Robbins, salon.com, 1 January 2013

Music criticism is in a horrible state. It wouldn't have to be if we talked about albums like they really mattered. ...

Graham Stewart: Bang! A History of Britain in the 1980s

Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 17 January 2013

A study of Thatcher's era that leaves vital questions unanswered ...

Woody Guthrie: House of Earth

Review by Michel Faber, The Guardian, 14 February 2013

Michel Faber asks if this explicit novel of poverty and sex is any more than a historic curio. ...

David Bowie: When Bowie met Burroughs

Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 9 March 2013

ON 28 FEBRUARY 1974, Rolling Stone magazine published a remarkable encounter between David Bowie and William Burroughs. Entitled "Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman", the event had been hosted ...

Music Journalism at 50

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, April 2013

MOST PEOPLE WHO KNOW ANYTHING about music journalism know that the late Frank Zappa defined it, in 1977, as "people who can't write interviewing people ...

Patrick Lundborg: Psychedelia: An Ancient Culture, A Modern Way of Life

Book Review by Byron Coley, Forced Exposure, April 2013

PATRICK LUNDBORG is a dapper Swedish record collector and culture writer with a penchant for the American underground scene. He's done a few quite good ...

In Defence of Albert Goldman

Comment by Mark Shipper, Rock's Backpages, June 2013

ONLY FOUR YEARS too late, but I never looked for anything like this, since I never expected anyone to share my feelings for the work ...

The Nine Lives of Felix Dennis: "I've lived an unbelievable life, even if I did do my best to kill myself"

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 ...

The Riot Grrrl Collection by Lisa Darms (The Feminist Press)

Book Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 6 June 2013

The Riot Grrrl Collection spreads girl germs of the '90s movement ...

Burt Bacharach: Royal Festival Hall, London SE1; Anyone Who Had a Heart (Alcourt)

Review by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 18 July 2013

The effect of seeing Bacharach live at the Royal Festival hall was to be hit by more top-40 songs that you'd think a single act ...

The Deviants, Mick Farren: Goodbye, Mick Farren, activist, rabble-rousing rocker and NME journalist

Memoir by Charles Shaar Murray, The Guardian, 29 July 2013

Mick Farren, who died onstage in London on Saturday, was a "living banner for the psychedelic left". He was also a friend who joined me ...

Mick Farren: Memories of Mick Farren: An entertaining afternoon in West Hollywood and a champagne-drenched night in Islington

Memoir by Paul Gorman, Rock's Backpages, 31 July 2013

GROWING UP IN London in the '60s and '70s with an interest in the counterculture, music and street politics meant that the shaggy-headed figure of ...

The Runaways: Evelyn McDonnell: Queens of Noise – The Real Story of the Runaways (Da Capo)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 21 August 2013

ANYONE WHO has seen either the Hollywood film The Runaways or the documentary Edgeplay may think they know the story of this band of five ...

The Who: Richard Weight: Mod – A Very British Style (Bodley Head)

Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 29 August 2013

IN A LOVELY 1963 piece on Miles Davis, Kenneth Tynan quoted Cocteau to illuminate the art of his "discreet, elliptical" subject: Davis was one of ...

Lloyd Bradley: Sounds Like London – 100 Years Of Black Music In The Capital (Serpent's Tail)

Book Review by Karl Dallas, Morning Star, 8 October 2013

Authentic account of black music's capital origins ...

Cymande, The Equals, Eddy Grant, Hot Chocolate, Osibisa, Ruthless Rap Assassins: Lloyd Bradley: Sounds Like London

Book Review by Greg Wilson, electrofunkroots.co.uk, 9 October 2013

JUST FINISHED a captivating and, to my mind, long-overdue book, which covers the history of black music in the capital spanning (almost) 100 years, the ...

Morrissey: Autobiography (Penguin)

Book Review by Stuart Maconie, The Observer, 19 October 2013

IT CAME UPON a midnight clear. Or just after anyway, if you downloaded the eBook or queued in one of the several bookshops that opened ...

The Future of Rock Journalism

Comment by Ryan Carse, Rock's Backpages, November 2013

FRANK ZAPPA successfully offended an entire industry in 1977 during an interview with Bruce Kirkland for the Toronto Star newspaper. He said, "Most rock journalism ...

The Beatles: Mark Lewisohn: Tune In: The Beatles – All These Years, Volume 1

Book Review by Tim Riley, The New York Times, 6 December 2013

APPROACHES TO retelling the Beatles' story slice in two distinct directions: narrow or wide. Some authors choose a single figure and bore down deep, which ...

Mick Farren: Foreword

Book Excerpt by Charles Shaar Murray, 'Elvis Died For Somebody's Sins But Not Mine', Spring 2013

MICK FARREN IS a man of many parts, an impressive number of which are still working despite the natural wear and-tear incurred by decades of ...

Donald Fagen, Steely Dan: Donald Fagen: Eminent Hipsters (Viking)

Book Review by Ian Penman, City Journal, 16 January 2014

IN JANUARY 1974, Joni Mitchell released the exquisite, deceptively sunny Court and Spark; two months later, on the penultimate day of March, the Ramones played their ...

Genesis, Mike + the Mechanics: Mike Rutherford: The Trick Of The Tale

Retrospective and Interview by Daryl Easlea, Record Collector, February 2014

Genesis and Mike + The Mechanics' founder Mike Rutherford has written an autobiography with a difference. Daryl Easlea met him to discuss The Living Years. ...

Lester Bangs: Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lester Bangs and Almost Famous

Retrospective by Jaan Uhelszki, Spin, 3 February 2014

WHEN PHILIP Seymour Hoffman died Sunday of an apparent overdose in his Greenwich Village apartment, it was like losing Lester Bangs all over again. ...

Allman Brothers Band: Alan Paul: One Way Out – The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band (St. Martin's Press)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 18 March 2014

MAKE NO MISTAKE. While only two of the six original members of the Allman Brothers Band were actual biological siblings, the fraternal ties of Duane ...

KISS: Paul Stanley: Face the Music – A Life Exposed (HarperOne)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 9 April 2014

WITH THE publication of this glitter-, greasepaint- and leather-slathered tome, all four original members of KISS have now penned their autobiographies. ...

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 ...

Phil Hardy, 1945-2014

Obituary by Dave Laing, The Guardian, 25 April 2014

THE LATE 1960s and the '70s saw a sea change in media coverage of popular culture, especially cinema and music. Film reviewers and pop journalists ...

Bob Dylan: Oh No! Not Another Bob Dylan Book: David Kinney's The Dylanologists

Book Review by Larry Jaffee, Huffington Post, May 2014

"Sometimes it seemed that every fan in Britain had launched a fanzine…" —David Kinney, The Dylanologists ...

Viv Albertine, The Slits: The Creative Life of Viv Albertine

Interview by Sheryl Garratt, Daily Telegraph, 11 May 2014

She hung out with Sid Vicious, trashed hotel rooms and her album was blacklisted. So what's changed for the former punk Viv Albertine – apart ...

Bert Berns: Joel Selvin: Here Comes the Night – The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm & Blues

Book Review by Holly Gleason, Paste, 12 May 2014

EVERY SO OFTEN, a music bio arrives that becomes "the book to read." Think of Last Train To Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley and ...

Leonard Cohen: Liel Leibovitz: A Broken Hallelujah – Rock 'n' Roll, Redemption, and the Life of Leonard Cohen

Book Review by Robert Dean Lurie, Front Porch Republic, 16 May 2014

LEONARD COHEN occupies an unusual position in popular music history. He is routinely neglected by those "Best of the 60's" nostalgia-fests you see on VH1, ...

Bert Berns: Hit Man: Joel Selvin's Here Comes the Night

Book Review by Robert Gordon, The New York Times Book Review, 30 May 2014

BERT BERNS the producer is the Phil Spector you've never heard of. Bert Berns the songwriter is the Leiber and Stoller you've never heard of. ...

Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (Loose)

Review by Rob Hughes, Uncut, June 2014

Anyone for metaphysical prog country? Nashville songwriter heads for the stars ...

Bert Berns: Here Comes The Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm & Blues by Joel Selvin

Book Review by Kirk Silsbee, Downbeat, July 2014

AMERICAN POP MUSIC from the no-man's-land after The Day The Music Died (Buddy Holly's fatal 1959 plane crash) and before the arrival of the Beatles ...

Alex Chilton: Holly George-Warren: A Man Called Destruction – The Life and Music of Alex Chilton from Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man (Viking)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 2014

IF EVERYBODY WHO heard the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s went on to form a punk group, it could be argued that everybody who ...

Bob Dylan: In The Dylan Zone: An excerpt from True Love Scars

Book Excerpt by Michael Goldberg, 'True Love Scars' (Neumu Press), July 2014

True Love Scars is a rock 'n' roll/ coming of age novel set in the late '60s and early '70s. If you liked On The ...

David Stubbs: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany

Book Review by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 22 August 2014

Krautrock is a term that is bandied about alarmingly freely by bloggers, hipsters and, most of all, bands, desperate for its reflected cool — but ...

Worth Their Wait: The UK Music Press in the late '70s/early '80s

Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, Pitchfork, 2 September 2014

Originally published in the first edition of our print quarterly The Pitchfork Review last winter, this story finds author Simon Reynolds looking back on his ...

Elvis Presley: Dylan Jones: Elvis Has Left the Building (Duckworth)/Joel Williamson: Elvis Presley – A Southern Life (Oxford)

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 ...

The Fall: Steve Hanley and Olivia Piekarski: The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Guardian, 1 October 2014

(This is the original – and very slightly different – version of the review that appeared in the Guardian...) IN HER BLURB for this compelling memoir, ...

Charles M Young: Rolling Stone writer who was the first to write about the British punk movement for an American audience

Obituary by Chris Salewicz, The Independent, 14 October 2014

AT THE 1979 Christmas party thrown by Rolling Stone magazine, Charles M. Young, one of the publication's star writers, who in a long 1977 article ...

Leonard Cohen: Tea and Oranges on High Holy Days

Retrospective by Kirk Silsbee, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 17 October 2014

LIKE MANY OF us, author Harvey Kubernik first heard Leonard Cohen through his interpreters.  Judy Collins recorded Cohen's obliquely lyrical 'Suzanne' and the sardonic suicide ...

Anthrax's Scott Ian Spins Tales From the Thrash Side

Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 5 November 2014

LIKE MANY MEN currently in their mid-to-late forties, Anthrax co-founder/rhythm guitarist Scott Ian was a huge, practically obsessive KISS fan growing up. ...

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 ...

The NME, Music Paper, 1952–

Book Excerpt by Brian Case, On the Snap (Caught by the River, 2015), 2015

THERE WAS a general impression among the rock writers when I arrived that jazz was something that went with pottery in St Ives, whereas I ...

James Bay: The new noise bubble: are critics' choice awards for new artists a blessing or a curse?

Comment by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 1 January 2015

Awards such as the BBC's Sound Of 2015 can be vital in helping new artists break through and get noticed by fans — but can ...

The Decemberists, The Mountain Goats, Mark Ronson: Songs for Swinging Authors: Can novelists write good lyrics?

Report and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 21 January 2015

Forget moon in June. Today's pop lyrics are written by Pulitzer-winning novelists. We talk to the writers muscling into pop – and the musicians flirting ...

Dead Kennedys: Highway to Hell: My Life on the Road with the Dead Kennedys

Memoir by Amy Linden, Cuepoint, 3 February 2015

IN 1981, I MOVED back to New York City after spending four years in San Francisco. I was 22, and a childhood friend and I ...

Bob Stanley: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! – The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé (W.W. Norton)

Book Review by Robert Dean Lurie, The American Conservative, 13 February 2015

I WISH I COULD say that my love of pop music began when my middle school music teacher showed me a documentary called The Compleat ...

Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Lives On

Report and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 22 February 2015

Political activist, rap pioneer and poet Gil Scott-Heron shaped the sound of today – from Talib Kweli and Kanye West to Kendrick Lamar. His friends ...

Phil Spector: Talk of the Town: Phil Spector in London

Book Excerpt by Norman Jopling, 'Shake It Up, Baby!', March 2015

THE RECORD MIRROR office was a four-room apartment above Drum City at 116 Shaftesbury Avenue and employed a total of nine full-time staff and numerous ...

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? ...

Tracey Thorn: "I'd kill to be able to sing like Adele"

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 12 April 2015

The Everything But the Girl frontwoman, whose book about the art of singing is out this month, on Twitter, The X Factor – and why ...

Norman Jopling: Shake It Up Baby – Notes From A Pop Music Reporter, 1961-1972 (Rock History Ltd.)

Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, May 2015

IN THE EARLY 1960s the U.K.'s music press was dominated by a small group of weekly papers, notably the New Musical Express, (aka NME), the ...

The Rolling Stones: Norman Jopling: Shake It Up Baby! Notes From A Pop Music Reporter 1961-1972

Book Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, May 2015

ON MAY 8,1963, an issue of New Record Mirror hit the London streets with a lead story that had enormous unforeseen consequences. ...

Richard King: Original Rockers (Faber & Faber)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, May 2015

IT IS DIFFICULT to imagine a book more guaranteed to stir the nether regions of RC readers than Richard King's expansive memoir of his time ...

Richard Goldstein: Another Little Piece of My Heart: My Life of Rock and Revolution in the '60s (Bloomsbury)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Guardian, 23 May 2015

WHEN RICHARD GOLDSTEIN got married, Murray "the K" Kaufman – the famous New York disc jockey who'd anointed himself "the Fifth Beatle" in 1964 – ...

David Bowie's DNA: Spaceboy Keeps Swinging

Essay by Steve Pafford, DNA, June 2015

David Bowie was the bisexual alien rock star who sold genderfuck to the world. He's also claimed to be the first pop star to declare ...

Keith Richards with James Fox: Life

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, June 2015

LIFE MAY BE a ghosted rock autobiography but it's much more than that. Credit to voracious reader Richards that in James Fox he hired no ...

The Dean of Rock Critics Schools Us On Himself: Robert Christgau's Going Into the City (Dey St.)

Book Review by Jason Gross, Rock's Backpages, June 2015

LET'S SAY THAT you're interested in New York City's mid-to-late 20th century history, plus journalism, plus music journalism, plus critical theory. You're not just in a pretty ...

Kathryn Williams: "Sylvia was a big shadow over my writing"

Interview by Jude Rogers, The Guardian, 14 June 2015

Singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams talks about how Sylvia Plath inspired her new album, and why she is determined to rescue the poet from the 'sexy, depressing ...

Belle And Sebastian, Alice Cooper, Grateful Dead, The Jam: Slaves to the rhythm: What the non-frontmen have to say

Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 18 June 2015

That's Entertainment: My Life in the Jam Rick Buckler Omnibus Press, 384pp, £14.95 Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams and Drugs with the Grateful Dead Bill ...

Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger: Elijah Wald: Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the '60s

Book Review by Peter Stone Brown, CounterPunch, 3 July 2015

THIS YEAR IS the 50th Anniversary of Bob Dylan armed with an electric guitar, taking the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, backed by a ...

Is it over for the NME?

Comment by James Brown, Daily Telegraph, 8 July 2015

As the New Musical Express announces it is to go free, here former features editor James Brown writes how the lights went out at the ...

Dennis Brown, Bob Marley & the Wailers: Tribal War, CIA, Dons & Drugs: Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings

Essay by Paul Bradshaw, Ancient to Future, 15 July 2015

ONE EVENING, as I left the home of friend and fellow scribbler, Neil Spencer, he thrust a weighty tome into my hands and said, "You ...

Chrissie Hynde: Reckless

Book Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 17 September 2015

There's no pretending in Chrissie Hynde's spare, deft memoir Reckless ...

Elvis Costello: Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink (Blue Rider Press)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Chronicle, 18 October 2015

Elvis Costello's autobiography offers musical influences, celebrity anecdotes and rock and roll mythology. ...

"The Best Things in Life Are Free": Downloads, Streaming, You Tube and Mags

Comment by James Musker, Rock's Backpages, November 2015

THE AGE OF INSTANT access is upon us. We are currently living in a world where it's difficult to avoid sensory overload, as there seems ...

Elvis Costello: Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, November 2015

LIKE A HANDFUL of rock stars I have encountered along the way – among them Townshend, Bowie and Zappa – Elvis Costello would have made ...

Lee Hazlewood: Wyndham Wallace: Lee, Myself And I – Inside The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood (Jawbone)

Book Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 2015

WYNDAM WALLACE was a publicist for the City Slang record label in the late 1990s and our paths crossed many times. My memory of him ...

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 ...

Patti Smith's Journey to Horses: A Timeline

Retrospective by Caryn Rose, Vulture, 13 November 2015

PATTI SMITH'S Horses, which turned 40 this week, is such a perfectly formed rock-and-roll artifact that it's difficult to imagine that Patti didn't just wake up ...

Elvis Presley: Next Train to Memphis: Peter Guralnick's Sam Phillips

Profile and Interview by Chris Campion, Rock's Backpages, 17 November 2015

AS THE PRE-EMINENT and passionate chronicler of music history, Peter Guralnick is in a league of his own, with a bibliography that not only — ...

Patti Smith: M Train

Book Review by Larry Jaffee, Women Across Frontiers, 17 November 2015

MY FIRST REVELATORY encounter with Patti Smith was listening on the radio in the fall of 1975 around the time of the release of her ...

Jon Savage: 1966 – The Year the Decade Exploded

Book Review by Bob Stanley, The Guardian, 20 November 2015

THE POP MUSIC you hear in your teenage years affects you more deeply than at any other time in your life. People who don't go ...

David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Hubert Sumlin, Mike Vernon: New Horizons: Mike Vernon (Part One)

Retrospective and Interview by Rob Hughes, Classic Rock, December 2015

WITHOUT PRODUCER and label boss Mike Vernon, the history of British blues would look very different. In the first part of a feature charting his ...

Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich: Peter Guralnick: New Bio Finally Gives Rock and Roll Architect Sam Phillips His Due

Report and Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 29 December 2015

WELL, AS Guralnick clarifies shortly into his foreword, if Sam Phillips didn't exactly "invent" rock and roll, he at least discovered it. Or so it ...

John Lennon's Rock'N'Roll

Book Excerpt by Everett True, '101 Albums You Should Die Before You Hear', 2016

TO THIS DAY, I am not sure why I was so attracted to Lennon as a surly teen. He was egotistical, sexist verging on misogynist, ...

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The book that declared pop music dead

Retrospective by Bob Stanley, The Observer, 6 February 2016

Nik Cohn thought John Lennon "self-pitying", Led Zeppelin "embarrassing" and rated Del Shannon's 'Runaway' above Van Morrison's entire career. Bob Stanley revisits his 1969 book. ...

Sex Pistols: "Don't look over your shoulder, but the Sex Pistols are coming": 40th Anniversary of their first review.

Retrospective by Paul Gorman, Paul Gorman Is, 12 February 2016

TODAY IS THE 40th anniversary of the gig at central London venue The Marquee by the Sex Pistols which generated their first substantial media coverage, ...

Black Gospel Music: A white fan considers a hundred-year musical history

Memoir by Tony Cummings, Contemporary Musicians, 25 February 2016

White journalist Tony Cummings muses on his decades-long fascination with black gospel music. ...

The Pad: An excerpt from Michael Goldberg's The Flowers Lied

Book Excerpt by Michael Goldberg, 'The Flowers Lied', March 2016

Michael Goldberg's rock 'n' roll coming-of-age novel, The Flowers Lied, has just been published. Richard Meltzer wrote that Goldberg's first novel, True Love Scars, was ...

Bob Cobbing: William Cobbing & Rosie Cooper (Editors): Boooook – The Life And Work Of Bob Cobbing (Occasional Papers)

Book Review by Byron Coley, The Wire, March 2016

THE LATE Bob Cobbing was an extraordinary individual. People, especially Americans such as myself, tend to be familiar with just one aspect of his long ...

The Replacements: Bob Mehr: Trouble Boys – The True Story of the Replacements

Book Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 10 March 2016

A new biography dives deep into the "'80s punk underdogs" epic, tragic story. ...

The Replacements: Bob Mehr: Trouble Boys – The True Story Of The Replacements (Da Capo)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, April 2016

IN RECENT YEARS there's been a shift in the way the Replacements are regarded. While for those in the know, they've always been adored, there ...

Lita Ford, The Runaways: Lita Ford: Living Like A Runaway – A Memoir (Dey Street)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 6 April 2016

SHORTLY BEFORE hitting her commercial peak in 1988 with her third solo record, Lita, and its two monster singles and videos – 'Kiss Me Deadly' ...

Captain and Tennille: Toni Tennille on her Memoir

Retrospective and Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Chronicle, 22 April 2016

Memoir reveals Captain and Tennille's private (and bizarre) misery. ...

Delines, The , Richmond Fontaine: Willy Vlautin: "I had a picture of Steinbeck and a picture of the Jam"

Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 24 April 2016

WILLY VLAUTIN is an American musician and novelist based in Portland, Oregon. His alt-country band Richmond Fontaine won critical acclaim with their 2004 album, Post ...

Patti Smith: M Train

Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 5 May 2016

THE WOMAN WHO cuts my hair – forty-something, old enough to remember punk but a neo-hippie these days – recently mentioned she'd been to see ...

Sniffin' Glue: A fanzine that epitomized punk

Retrospective and Interview by Peter Silverton, The Independent, 10 May 2016

It's UK punk's 40th anniversary year – sort of – and among the work being celebrated is Sniffin' Glue, the photocopied publication that embodied the ...

Ben Ratliff: Every Song Ever/John Seabrook: The Song Machine and other new books

Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 13 May 2016

The digital revolution has turned pop into a world of smart playlists and surprise albums. Yet the way we engage with music remains remarkably similar. ...

Paul McCartney: Philip Norman: Paul McCartney – The Biography

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, June 2016

WHAT MUST IT be like to be Paul McCartney? Deluged by gargantuan levels of fame since the age of 21, he has remained squarely in ...

Skyhooks: The Glory Days Of RAM Magazine: A Q&A with Anthony O'Grady

Retrospective and Interview by Dave Laing (Australia), I Like Your Old Stuff, 20 July 2016

ONE OF THE most influential figures on the Australian rock scene of the late '70s and early '80s – and the man who wrote liner notes ...

Vivien Goldman: Do Everything Yourself: The Lessons Of Punk Renaissance Woman Vivien Goldman

Profile and Interview by Evelyn McDonnell, Record, The (NPR), 21 July 2016

ON JUNE 29, 64 years after the day she was born in London to Jewish parents who had fled Nazi Germany, Vivien Goldman was back ...

The Faces, Michael Jackson, The Police, Slade: John Pidgeon, 1947-2016

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 21 July 2016

Rock writer turned broadcasting executive who did much to reinvigorate BBC radio comedy. ...

Aluk Todolo, Bobby Beausoleil & The Freedom Orchestra , Black Widow, Blue Öyster Cult, Graham Bond, Coven, Jimmy Page, Rudimentary Peni, Skullflower, John Zorn: The Primer: Occult rock

Guide by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, August 2016

Channelling the magick of Aleister Crowley and the neo-paganism of witchcraft, occult rock is the sound of rock 'n' roll's secret society. Edwin Pouncey reads ...

The Economics of Rock Criticism

Comment by Fred Mills, Blurt, September 2016

Ever wonder why reviewers do what they do when they are actually LOSING money on the deal? (First in a series, collect them all.) ...

Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run (Simon & Schuster)

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, October 2016

TWO OF THE best Bruce Springsteen shows I ever saw were at Wembley Stadium in July of 1985. ...

The Fall: Totally Wired: The Fall in NZ, 1982

Book Excerpt by Roger Shepherd, 'In Love with These Times' (Harper Collins), October 2016

WE ALL LOVED The Fall. They were one of the original English punk bands inspired by the Sex Pistols' visit to Manchester and quickly grew ...

New Order: Peter Hook: Substance – Inside New Order

Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 5 October 2016

The band's bassist gives full details of drugs, groupies and excesses on tour, but his account of New Order's voyage to becoming a pop institution ...

Brian Wilson with Ben Greenman: I Am Brian Wilson – A Memoir (Da Capo)

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Chronicle, 7 October 2016

FOR MOST of his life, Brian Wilson has heard voices in his head. They might be the sweet harmonies of his bandmates in the Beach ...

The Beach Boys: Mike Love: Good Vibrations

Book Review by Bob Stanley, The Guardian, 13 October 2016

Love lacked the sensitivity of his cousin Brian Wilson, but he kept the band going after their fall from grace. He tells his side of ...

John Cage: Laura Kuhn (ed.): The Selected Letters of John Cage

Book Review by Tim Page, New York Review of Books, 27 October 2016

THERE ARE CERTAIN creative figures whose mature works are almost tangential to their enduring artistic influence. Marcel Duchamp falls into this group, as does Andy ...

Marc Bolan, David Bowie: Simon Reynolds: Shock & Awe – Glam Rock And Its Legacy (Faber)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, November 2016

AFTER DEFINING studies of post-punk (Rip It Up & Start Again) and nostalgia (Retromania), Simon Reynolds turns his gaze to glam in all its glory. ...

Johnny Marr, The Sex Pistols: Steve Jones – Lonely Boy; Johnny Marr – Set The Boy Free

Book Review by Jude Rogers, The Observer, 20 November 2016

Contrasting memoirs of life in the Sex Pistols and the Smiths from two charismatic working-class guitarists. ...

Johnny Marr, The Smiths: Johnny Marr: Set The Boy Free

Book Review by Stuart Maconie, Daily Mail, 26 November 2016

Written in disarmingly unaffected prose, Johnny Marr's long-awaited autobiography avoids all the rock and roll clichés. ...

David Hepworth: 1971 – Never A Dull Moment, Rock's Golden Year

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, December 2016

THERE CAN'T BE many amongst us who haven't at one time or another wished we could turn the clock back to a period in time ...

Paul Simon: Peter Ames Carlin: Homeward Bound – The Life Of Paul Simon

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, December 2016

IF EVER A career in music was pre-ordained, it is that of Paul Simon, the ambitious, gifted and ever-so-scrupulous first son of a professional double-bass ...

Robbie Robertson: Testimony

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 2016

THE BAND'S STORY continues to beguile: how did a group so rich in talent and promise implode so hopelessly, only to pull the rabbit out ...

The Band, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson: Testimony (Heineman)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, December 2016

ONE OF THE delightful aspects of The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese's doc of The Band's goodbye hootenanny, are the scene-setting vignettes from the group that ...

The Best Music Journalism Of 2016

Essay by Jason Gross, Rock's Backpages, December 2016

WE WANTED 2016 to end and we're getting our wish, but the fallout from this awful year will be haunting us for a while – ...

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 ...

Bruce Springsteen: Born to Run (Simon & Schuster)

Book Review by Robert Dean Lurie, National Review, 31 December 2016

SPRINGSTEEN. THE BOSS. Bruuuuuce. A lot of hyperbolic ink has been spilled over this man through the years, so I'm going to walk it back ...

Paul Nelson: Bartleby on Carmine Street

Memoir by Raphael Rubinstein, The Brooklyn Rail, Summer 2016

"Bartleby, when confronted by failure, conceded magnificently, he did not commit suicide or become interminably bitter, he simply ate ginger-nuts." – Enrique Vila-Matas ...

Barry Cain and Neil Matthews: Flexipop! The Book

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, , January 2017

ADAM ANT revealing that, as a child, his father used to call him Fadius Nicodemus; the peculiar habits of Robert Smith ("Today I dressed up ...

The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized: Will Carruthers: Spaced

Interview by Julian Marszalek, Bass Guitar, January 2017

After playing bass with Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Dead Skeletons, what's a man to do? Write a memoir of course. Julian ...

David Bowie: Paul Morley: The Age of Bowie/Rob Sheffield: On Bowie/Simon Critchley: On Bowie/Simon Reynolds: Shock and Awe

Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 5 January 2017

IN 1975, DAVID BOWIE was in Los Angeles pretending to star in a film that wasn't being made, adapted from a memoir he would never ...

David Hajdu: Love for Sale/Marc Meyers: Anatomy of a Song/ Ed Ward: History of Rock'n'Roll, Vol. 1

Book Review by James Medd, New Statesman, 14 January 2017

For decades, white male critics have championed white male rock. Can a new school of writing re-evaluate the history of pop music? ...

The Band, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson: Testimony

Book Review by Clinton Heylin, The Spectator, 21 January 2017

THE RECENT SPATE of rock memoirs has proved one of the less rewarding sub-genres in the post-digital Gutenberg galaxy. Obeying few rules of a good ...

The Beatles: Steve Turner: Beatles '66 – The Revolutionary Year

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, February 2017

"ED SHEERAN," screams the cover of this months GQ magazine. "How he became the biggest pop star on the planet." Not while Paul McCartney walks ...

Wilson Pickett: Tony Fletcher: In The Midnight Hour – The Life & Soul Of Wilson Pickett

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, February 2017

ABUSE RUNS in the family, or so they say. Those ill-treated as children go on to ill-treat as adults and it's near impossible to break ...

Working at the Artists' Garage: Excerpts from Michael Goldberg's Untitled

Book Excerpt by Michael Goldberg, Neumu Press, March 2017

Michael Goldberg's rock 'n' roll coming-of-age novel, Untitled, has just been published. "Oral prose," writes Larry Beckett, the brilliant poet and songwriter who penned the ...

Prince: Ben Greenman: Dig If You Will The Picture (Faber & Faber)

Book Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, May 2017

IT'S NO SURPRISE that Prince's death has inspired reams of writing attempting to either unravel the man, his creativity and unique appeal or – less ...

Remembering the writer Richard C. Walls

Memoir by Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times, 22 May 2017

Detroit-based writer Richard C. Walls died in hospice care over the weekend. Walls was a longtime writer for Creem, and reviewed films as recently as ...

Meow! My Life with Tiger Beat's Teen Idols: An Introduction

Book Excerpt by Ann Moses, 'Meow!', June 2017

FEBRUARY 3, 1968 IT'S MY TWENTY-FIRST birthday. I'm standing at the front window of my house a block below the Hollywood sign, wearing a dress made ...

Harold Bronson: My British Invasion

Book Review by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages, June 2017

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER with Harold Bronson was at the Pasadena Rose Bowl Swapmeet in November, 1973. We have met subsequently on probably more than a ...

Margaret Moser: Queen Of Austin, Is Dancing In The Light

Report and Interview by Joe Nick Patoski, NPR, 22 June 2017

JUNE 18 WAS the beginning of a week-long Open House at Tex Pop, the South Texas Museum of Popular Culture — a storefront wedged between ...

Elvis Presley: Caught in a Trap: The Kidnapping of Elvis – Two Excerpts

Book Excerpt by Chris Charlesworth, (Red Planet Books), August 2017

The first extract from Caught in a Trap features Elvis in hospital (which is true) accepting a phone call from Richard Nixon (which probably isn't). ...

Allan Jones: Can't Stand Up For Falling Down: Rock'n'roll War Stories

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, August 2017

THE AGE OF DEFERENCE had yet to lapse when I joined Melody Maker in 1970. Four years later, when Allan Jones joined the paper, it ...

Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, The Moldy Peaches, The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Lizzy Goodman: Meet Me in the Bathroom – Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City, 2001-2011

Book Review by Barbara Ellen, The Guardian, 8 August 2017

This oral history of New York's musical renaissance is vivid, informative and full of passion. ...

Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney: Rolling Stone founder falls out with biographer over candid life story

Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, The Guardian, 22 October 2017

Jann Wenner, whose magazine charted pop music and culture since the '60s, gave Joe Hagan full access but is unhappy with the result, especially "the ...

Joe Hagan: Sticky Fingers – The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine

Book Review by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 29 October 2017

This biography of Rolling Stone's  founder is a lurid and revelatory tale of drugs, sex — and power. ...

Life after the NME: Nick Logan's journey from Smash Hits to The Face

Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, 'The Story of The Face' (Thames & Hudson), November 2017

PAUSING TO MAKE his last appointment in the form of Danny Baker, fresh from punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue, Nick Logan handed in his notice as ...

Paul Gorman: The Story of The Face

Book Review by Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 1 November 2017

This huge, rich book is a celebration not only of the style bible but of London, Manchester and Liverpool in the late 20th century. ...

Joe Hagan: Sticky Fingers – The Life & Times of Jann Wenner & Rolling Stone Magazine

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, 3 November 2017

THE IMAGE OF the brooding, avaricious, power-hungry newspaper proprietor was set in stone by Orson Welles in the film Citizen Kane and through the ages ...

How The Face Launched the 21st Century

Retrospective by Paul Gorman, GQ, 9 November 2017

OVER THE SUMMER of 1988, editor/publisher Nick Logan — hands-down the greatest British magazine innovator of our time — seriously contemplated shuttering his independently published ...

David Hepworth: Uncommon People – The Rise and Fall of the Rock Stars

Book Review by Erik Himmelsbach, Los Angeles Times Book Review, 16 November 2017

IT'S PROBABLY SAFE TO assume that most of us have wanted to be a rock star at some point in our lives. The impulse is ...

Joe Hagan: Sticky Fingers – The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine

Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 17 November 2017

JOE HAGAN IS one smart guy. ...

Slade: Dave Hill: So Here It Is (Unbound)

Book Review by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 22 December 2017

THE EXCLAMATION mark in biography is a peculiar thing. It leaps from the page like a spark from a bomb, but it is jollier, perkier, ...

Joni Mitchell: David Yaffe: Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell

Book Review by Clinton Heylin, unpublished, Fall 2017

WARREN ZEVON, a Laurel Canyon contemporary of Joni Mitchell, once wrote a song called 'Accidentally Like A Martyr'. Taking a leaf from Zevon, David Yaffe's ...

James Brown: Cliff White, 1945-2018

Obituary by Paul Sexton, Music Week, 30 January 2018

CLIFF WHITE, one of the UK's leading journalistic authorities on soul music and a Grammy winner for his work on James Brown's Star Time box ...

Bob Dylan: "A hundred-mile-an-hour clip": Bob Dylan and the Beats

Book Excerpt by Michael Goldberg, 'Kerouac on Record' (Bloomsbury), March 2018

Editor's note: The just-published Kerouac On Record includes many essays about the influence of Jack Kerouac on musicians, including the Grateful Dead, Patti Smith, Tom ...

Cliff White 1945-2018

Obituary by Bill Millar, Now Dig This, March 2018

Bill Millar raises a glass to the well-known and highly respected record industry veteran, long-time R&B, rock 'n' roll, soul and blues fan who passed ...

Anna von Hausswolff: 'Forget about space and time, it's eternal and mysterious'

Interview by Kieron Tyler, The Arts Desk, 2 March 2018

The Swedish singer-songwriter on her new album Dead Magic   ...

The NME is dead. But its soul left its body long ago

Essay by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 9 March 2018

The former bastion of counterculture captured the spirit of punk and in its heyday was uncompromising. Nick Hasted remembers the good times, and charts how the magazine ...

Farewell NME – irreverent, acerbic, essential. At least when I was there!

Comment by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 11 March 2018

In an era of bland stars and Spotify, is it any wonder the printed music press is no more? ...

The lost world of the music weekly: Why NME was the last of an extinct species

Comment by Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 14 March 2018

ONE EVENING IN the late 1980s, returning from my part-time job teaching "scallies" ethnomethodology in Skelmersdale, I opened a letter with a London postmark. It was ...

Jeff Buckley in the U.K.

Book Excerpt by Jim Irvin, 'From Hallelujah to the Last Goodbye' (Post Hill), May 2018

Excerpted from Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah to the Last Goodbye by Jeff's former manager Dave Lory and former MOJO man Jim Irvin (Post Hill Press). ...

The Beatles: Derek Taylor: As Time Goes By (Faber)

Book Review by Mick Brown, Sunday Telegraph, 5 May 2018

ONE MAGICAL weekend in the summer of 1968, Derek Taylor, the press agent for the Beatles, took a trip with Paul McCartney and the singer ...

Michael Des Barres, Mick Jagger, Keith Moon, Jimmy Page: Good Time Girl: Memories of super groupie Pamela Des Barres

Retrospective and Interview by Craig McLean, The Observer, 6 May 2018

Pamela Des Barres had the giants of rock'n'roll in the palm of her hand, as her candid memoir reveals. ...

Stiff Little Fingers: Stuart Bailie on Trouble Songs: "I wanted to do something beautiful and pure"

Interview by Peter Murphy, The Irish Times, 12 May 2018

For his new book, about the music that soundtracked the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Belfast journalist Stuart Bailie followed the DIY aesthetic of the punk-era ...

The Beatles: Derek Taylor: The Fifth Beatle

Retrospective by Jon Savage, GQ, 20 May 2018

He was the proto multi-hyphenate, serving as press officer, PA and confidante to the Beatles while still finding time to master journalism, launch the Byrds, ...

"Country Music … Was Anything BUT Pure": An Interview with Bill Malone and Tracey Laird

Retrospective and Interview by Will Hermes, Longreads, 4 June 2018

The co-authors of Country Music USA – a revised edition of the genre's definitive history – talk about the music's African-American tributaries, its unpredictable politics, ...

The Doors: Jerry Hopkins

Memoir by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, 5 June 2018

MY WRITER FRIEND Jerry Hopkins, who died at the weekend aged 82, was a grizzled old veteran of rock's seminal years. ...

Crosby Stills and Nash, Rick Danko, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, Sinead O'Connor, Lou Reed: Dispatches from the Everyday World of Music: An Assortment

Book Excerpt by Martin Colyer, 'Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week', July 2018

Excerpts from RBP co-founder Colyer's new book Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week, published this week with an introduction by Richard Williams ...

The Band: John Niven's Music from Big Pink: A Foreword

Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Music from Big Pink' (Bloomsbury), July 2018

THE FACT THAT John Niven was just two years old in 1968 – the year in which The Band's Music from Big Pink was released ...

Jimmy Page: Chris Salewicz: Jimmy Page – The Definitive Biography

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, August 2018

BACK IN 2012 I was involved in convoluted negotiations with Jimmy Page's lawyer for Omnibus Press to publish a trade edition of the photo book ...

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 Beatles, Art Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, George Martin, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Jimmy Webb: Paperback Writer

Guide by Steve Matteo, Boomer, 17 August 2018

Recent books by and about favorite boomer musicians and influencers ...

Blondie, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett, John Lennon, New York Dolls, Suzi Quatro, The Runaways: In the Hot Seat with Larry LeBlanc: Toby Mamis, manager, Alive Enterprises

Interview by Larry LeBlanc, Celebrity Access, 30 August 2018

YOU ARE GOING to have to wait for a film to make much sense of Toby Mamis' fabulously winding career. ...

Wayne Kramer, MC5: Legendary Rock Guitarist Wayne Kramer Talks "MC50" Tour, Free Jazz Influences and His Jail Guitar Doors Non-Profit Org

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Cincinnati CityBeat, 23 October 2018

Kramer and members of Soundgarden, Faith No More and Fugazi perform MC5 classics at Bogart's on Oct. 25. ...

What crisis? Why music journalism is actually healthier than ever

Report and Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 24 October 2018

A steady decline in circulation of the music press, epitomised by the closure of NME this year, has created new opportunities for stalwarts and niche ...

Roger Daltrey: Thanks A Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite – My Story

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, November 2018

AMONGST THEIR many virtues, the Who were disgustingly honest. Jagger only told you what he wanted to tell you, Led Zep were taciturn, Floyd aloof ...

David Bowie's DNA: Spaceboy Keeps Swinging

Retrospective by Steve Pafford, DNA, 3 November 2018

David Bowie was the bisexual alien rock star who sold genderfuck to the world. He's also claimed to be the first pop star to declare ...

Roger Daltrey: Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite – My Story

Book Review by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 10 November 2018

The recollections of the most sober member of the Who are distinctly hazy, Stephen Dalton finds. ...

A Top 40 Countdown & A Plea For a Mitzvah in the Streaming Age: The Best Music Journalism of 2018

Guide by Jason Gross, Rock's Backpages, December 2018

2018 WAS A really good year, just not politically, socially, psychologically and spiritually... well, there was plenty of good music, as Fader, Consequence of Sound ...

Anthony O'Grady R.I.P.

Obituary by Clinton Walker, Rock's Backpages, December 2018

ANTHONY O'GRADY, who died on 19 December, was the Godfather here in Australia. He was the writer/editor/publisher who transformed Australian rock journalism and music magazines, ...

Mick Jagger: Memo from Jagger: The Story of Performance

Book Excerpt by Jay Glennie, Rock's Backpages, December 2018

"DO YOU FANCY writing a book on Performance?" It was Sandy Lieberson on the phone, the producer of Performance, with the offer of a lifetime. ...

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. ...

Laurence Cane-Honeysett: The Story of Trojan Records

Book Review by Tony Burke, Morning Star, 15 December 2018

GROWING UP in the early 1960s in Manchester, with grandparents living in Moss Side, the infectious music of bluebeat and ska records newly imported from ...

David Cavanagh: The writer who saw the musicians behind the music

Comment by John Harris, The Guardian, 31 December 2018

With his acute observations on David Bowie, Paul Weller and Radiohead, Cavanagh combined a passion for music with an eye for the small details of ...

Buddy Guy, Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich: Take The Music Seriously: An Interview with Peter Guralnick, 20th August, 2009

Book Excerpt by Maud Berthomier, 'Encore Plus De Bruit' (Éditions Tristram), 2019

"Because in the end to me, even today, it's never entirely clear exactly what any interview is about. Sometimes, the most important thing in an ...

The Doubts Aired As Gags: Three Decades of Cross-Cultural Utopianism in UK Music-Writing

Book Excerpt by Mark Sinker, Strange Attractor Press, January 2019

Extract from Mark Sinker's introduction to A HIDDEN LANDSCAPE ONCE A WEEK: The Unruly Curiosity of the UK Music Press in the 1960s-80s, in the words ...

Dave Laing, 1947-2019

Obituary by Tony Russell, The Guardian, 14 January 2019

Music writer, rock correspondent and academic who understood and communicated the cultural worth of pop. ...

Uncle Tupelo, Wilco: Jeff Tweedy: At Least That's What He Said

Interview by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, February 2019

The recent publication of his autobiography and the release of his first solo album, Warm, have seen Wilco man Jeff Tweedy reflect on a remarkable ...

Les Fancourt and Bob McGrath: The Blues Discography 1943–1970 (Third Edition)

Book Excerpt by Tony Burke, Eyeball Productions, February 2019

WELCOME TO the expanded and revised third edition of The Blues Discography 1943–1970. It is now 50 years since Mike Leadbitter and Neil Slaven first ...

The Whirligig of Time

Memoir by Geoffrey Cannon, Rock's Backpages, February 2019

"THE PAST is never dead. It is not even past" rightly said William Faulkner. My time as a regular writer on rock music was half ...

Lazy Lester, Lightnin' Slim, Slim Harpo: Randy Fox: Shake Your Hips – The Excello Records Story

Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, March 2019

FOR MANY UK blues fans, Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon Records opened the door to Excello Records. ...

Taylor Jenkins Reid: Daisy Jones & the Six

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, March 2019

IN DECEMBER 1972 I found myself in the US reporting for Melody Maker on a Deep Purple tour as it visited Des Moines and Indianapolis. In ...

Nirvana: Danny Goldberg: Serving the Servant – Remembering Kurt Cobain (Ecco)

Book Review by Michael Simmons, L.A. Weekly, 12 April 2019

MUSIC BIZ macher, political activist and author Danny Goldberg's new book is Serving the Servant: Remembering Kurt Cobain (Ecco), a reminiscence of his time as ...

Nick Cave, Larry "Ratso" Sloman: Ratso Has A Record (and a duet with Nick Cave)

Comment by Michael Simmons, Dangerous Minds, 25 April 2019

WHAT MOST PEOPLE dream about, Larry "Ratso" Sloman makes happen. Anyone who's read Ratso's first book, 1978's On The Road With Bob Dylan, has witnessed ...

Robert Johnson: Gayle Dean Wardlow and Bruce Conforth: Up Jumped The Devil – The Real Life of Robert Johnson (Chicago Review Press)

Book Review by Tony Burke, Morning Star, May 2019

THOUGH HE only made 40 recordings, US blues artist Robert Johnson's legacy has endured for over eight decades and his songs are now part of ...

Cypress Hill, Tricky, Barry White: It's Like That: The Makings of a Hip-Hop Writer

Memoir by Michael A. Gonzales, Longreads, June 2019

Hip-hop was a different kind of music that needed a different kind of writer to cover it. This is how Michael A. Gonzales came of ...

Joy Division: Jon Savage: This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else – Joy Division, the Oral History (Faber)

Book Review by Clinton Heylin, The Spectator, 8 June 2019

The post-punk band were great performers. But they sold very few records, and their lead singer committed suicide aged 23 ...

The golden age of the pop PR

Retrospective and Interview by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 4 July 2019

How mythmakers shaped the music scene. ...

The Beatles: Mark Lewisohn: Why I can't just ...Let It Be!

Interview by Graeme Thomson, Mail On Sunday, 13 July 2019

The world's foremost authority on the Beatles, Mark Lewisohn, reveals why he'll stop at nothing to complete his definitive history of the band. ...

An Interview with Baron Wolman

Interview by Don Armstrong, Music Journalism History, 17 July 2019

BARON WOLMAN – Rolling Stone's first photographer – changed the course of rock music journalism during the pivotal counterculture era, and I was delighted when ...

Ben Folds: "I dreaded that song coming out": Ben Folds on 'Brick', William Shatner and hitting rock bottom

Interview by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 29 August 2019

In Australia with his new memoir, the 'songwriting sociopath' discusses creativity and what Shatner taught him about coolness: 'He just does not give a shit' ...

The Black Crowes: Steve Gorman's Explosive Memoir Tells Wayward Flight of the Black Crowes

Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 18 September 2019

THROUGH THE entire career of the Black Crowes — from when they were known as Mr. Crowe's Garden, to their 1990 hit debut record Shake ...

Breaking out of the galaith box: Women music journalists in America, 1920–1960

Retrospective by Don Armstrong, Music Journalism History, October 2019

Introduction  In a gay, diminutive galaith box comes an indelible lip paste blended from the finest beautifiers, exuberantly youthful in color. 'Feminine Frills', Edita Miller Lenz (Billboard, ...

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 ...

Elton John with Alexis Petridis: Me

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, October 2019

A POPULAR musician who has stepped on stage dressed as Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse and Amadeus Mozart, complete with elevated, powdered wig, is unlikely to ...

Nick Tosches, 1949-2019

Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 23 October 2019

American writer who epitomised the rackety world of the 1960s rock press and went on to become a successful biographer ...

George Michael, Andrew Ridgeley, Wham!: Andrew Ridgeley: Wham! George & Me (Michael Joseph)

Book Review by Graeme Thomson, Event Magazine, 26 October 2019

Despite being crushed' at his bandmate's death, Andrew Ridgeley's memoir, Wham! George & Me, is merely a bland look at the duo's career. ...

The Animals, Manfred Mann, The Rolling Stones: The History of the Blues-Rock Press: Part 1

Retrospective by Don Armstrong, Music Journalism History, November 2019

Based on a series of posts published in Music Journalism History from November 9, 2019 to March 13, 2020. ...

The Teardrop Explodes: Wilder Times: How the Teardrops Exploded

Book Excerpt by Mick Houghton, 'Fried and Justified' (Faber & Faber), Summer 2019

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The back story here is the release of the Teardrop Explodes' second album Wilder on 20 November 1981. Rather than do the usual ...

Screamin' Jay Hawkins: Steve Bergsman: I Put A Spell On You – The Bizarre Life Of Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Feral House)

Book Review by Bill Wasserzieher, Ugly Things, Summer 2019

WHAT CAN BE said about the artist known as Screamin' Jay Hawkins? Perhaps that he did more to promote over-population than any other American, fathering ...

Little Richard, Billy Vera: Billy Vera: Rip It Up – The Specialty Records Story

Book Review by Tony Burke, Record Collector, January 2020

ONE OF THE most important independent post-war record labels, Specialty is up there with Chess, Modern/RPM, King, and Atlantic. ...

John and Colin Mansfield: As You Were – The True Adventures Of The Ricky Tick Club

Book Review by Tony Burke, Blues & Rhythm, February 2020

THE RICKY TICK Club has a permanent place in the development of British rhythm and blues and rock music. I can't recall any decent history ...

John Entwistle, The Who: Paul Rees: The Ox – The Last Of The Great Rock Stars, the Authorised Biography Of John Entwistle

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 ...

Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Howlin' Wolf: The History of the Blues-Rock Press: Part 2

Retrospective by Don Armstrong, Music Journalism History, March 2020

Based on a series of posts published in Music Journalism History from November 9, 2019 to March 13, 2020. ...

The Go-Go's: Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go's Reveals All She Ever Wanted

Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 27 March 2020

FOR KATHY Valentine, it was a Christmas gift that not only kept on giving, but in many ways came to define her life and music. ...

Malcolm McLaren: Paul Gorman: The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren

Book Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 6 April 2020

Huckster, visionary — or a bit of both? An exhaustive new biography chases down the elusive punk promoter  ...

Richard Russell: Better Music Through Listening: XL's Richard Russell Interviewed

Interview by Angus Batey, The Quietus, 11 April 2020

The XL Records boss on his first book, new LP, and how not to be a dickhead. ...

The Beatles: From Beetles to Beatles: It was 60 years ago today

Essay by Simon Warner, Kerouac.com, 1 June 2020

How Beat and a British poet changed the history of rock music ...

Pat Boone: The Literary Boone

Memoir by Gary Pig Gold, Ballbuster Music, 1 June 2020

THE CHRISTMAS following my Pancakes with Pat, a strange package arrived on my doorstep from a hitherto unknown address in Burbank, California. "Boone Productions, Inc.," ...

Farewell to Kerrang!

Comment by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 8 July 2020

IN THE FIRST decade of the 21st Century, the British rock magazine Kerrang! ran a small weekly item called "Stimulants". Secreted away at the bottom ...

Why we should mourn the loss of Q magazine

Retrospective by David Hepworth, New Statesman, 22 July 2020

The music title was a thrill-ride at the front and a good shopping guide at the back.  ...

David Mitchell: Utopia Avenue

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, 24 July 2020

DAVID MITCHELL is a distinguished author whose books are regularly reviewed by fellow novelists in upmarket broadsheets. His best known work, Cloud Atlas, is a dazzling ...

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 - ...

Eddie Floyd with Tony Fletcher: Knock! Knock! Knock! On Wood – A Life In Soul

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, 30 September 2020

EDDIE FLOYD isn't a household name like Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding, his private life was never as lively as Marvin Gaye or James Brown, ...

Bruce Springsteen: "Cuyahoga": An excerpt from Loudmouth

Book Excerpt by Robert Duncan, Three Rooms Press, October 2020

...

Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Lonnie Mack: Peter Guralnick Gets Lost in Profiles of Musical Giants

Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 3 December 2020

PETER GURALNICK didn't set out to be a music journalist. The occupation didn't really exist at the time when a combination of luck and bluster ...

Bear Family 45th anniversary

Book Excerpt by Kieron Tyler, unpublished, Spring 2020

ASTONISHINGLY, Bear Family Records celebrates its 45th year in business in 2020. During that time, the label has never stopped producing the ultimate in reissues ...

John Doe, X: John Doe: How Antioch Prepared The X Co-Founder To Make Punk Rock History

Retrospective and Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Antioch Alumni Magazine, Fall 2020

WHEN THE California quartet X released its first album in 1980, it upended everyone's assumptions about punk rock. The twin lead vocals from a man ...

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 ...

The Byrds, David Crosby, Johnny Marr, Van Morrison, Morrissey, The Smiths: Johnny Rogan, 1953-2021

Obituary by Chris Charlesworth, Rock's Backpages, February 2021

MY GOOD FRIEND Johnny Rogan, who died unexpectedly in January aged 67, was among the most prolific and acclaimed music biographers of his generation. Much ...

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), ...

Kim Fowley, Jan & Dean: California Eden: Sun, Surf, Sex, and Some Great Music

Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 22 March 2021

THE OLD ADAGE goes that high school is the place to experience "the best years of your life." And while that's hardly a universal feeling, ...

The Go-Betweens, Tracey Thorn: Tracey Thorn's new book, My Rock 'n' Roll Friend, is settling scores for women

Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Sunday Times, 28 March 2021

The pop star turned author on her memoir of the Go-Betweens drummer Lindy Morrison ...

Various Artists: Jon Savage's 1972-1976 – All Our Times Have Come

Review by Kieron Tyler, The Arts Desk, 28 March 2021

Tracking the route to punk without stating the obvious ...

Dr. John, Lowell George, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Waits: Rickie Lee Jones: "I had lived volumes long before I was famous"

Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 18 April 2021

A fractured childhood, years as a hippie drifter… the musician's new memoir tells of her incredible adventures before she found fame – and of her ...

"He was our Google": Fred Dellar, 1931-2021

Special Feature by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, May 2021

I REMEMBER being slightly shocked when I heard that Fred Dellar was going to turn 80 years old. A decade later, he has died just ...

Keith Altham at 80: An Appreciation

Memoir by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, May 2021

TWENTY YEARS AGO, when I co-founded Rock's Backpages with Mark Pringle and Martin Colyer, one of the first names on our Wants List was Keith. ...

Lydia Lunch's Infinite Rebellion

Profile and Interview by Jim Farber, The New York Times, 28 June 2021

FOR NEARLY two hours on a recent afternoon, Lydia Lunch sat in her bright Brooklyn apartment and spoke with bracing speed, and at an alarming ...

The Clash, Sex Pistols: Jon Savage: A Conversation about England's Dreaming

Interview by Irina Shtreis, Louder Than War, 14 July 2021

The new edition of England's Dreaming is out now via Faber & Faber and Rough Trade as part of the bundle including two other pivotal ...

Michael Horovitz OBE (4 April 1935 – 7 July 2021)

Obituary by Jon Newey, Jazzwise, September 2021

The celebrated British beat poet, writer, artist, 'anglo saxophonist', Michael Horovitz, has died age 86. ...

Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac: The Legend of Zimmerman

Retrospective by Simon Warner, Rock and the Beat Generation, 24 September 2021

Bob Dylan delighted in the tales he could spin to embroider his early biography and Jack Kerouac adapted his own life for fictional purposes. ...

Jack Kerouac: Still Rockin' in the Beat world

Essay by Simon Warner, Perfect Sound Forever, October 2021

How Kerouac cool continues to fuel popular music passions as the writer's Centenary nears in 2022 ...

Bob Fisher, 1947-2021

Obituary by Bill Millar, Now Dig This, November 2021

Bill Millar commemorates the life of the gifted writer and pioneering back catalogue expert whose devotion to rock n roll, blues and soul enhanced the ...

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 ...

Punk fanzines: ideological, educational, critical

Retrospective and Interview by Irina Shtreis, Louder Than War, 31 December 2021

Drawing from the tradition of independent rock 'n' roll publications, punk fanzines attempted to reveal hidden facets of life. ...

Gilles Peterson: Lockdown FM: Broadcasting in a Pandemic

Book Review by John L. Walters, Eye, Fall 2021

GILLES PETERSON is known for his unfeasibly large record collection and an unstoppable enthusiasm for Black music. The pandemic forced radical changes to the DJ's ...

Alternative TV: Mark Perry on Sniffin' Glue

Book Excerpt by Hamish Ironside, 'We Peaked at Paper' (Boatwhistle Books), 2022

NOTE: This interview is an excerpt from We Peaked At Paper: An Oral History of British Zines by Gavin Hogg and Hamish Ironside, published by ...

Jack Kerouac: The many sounds of Kerouac's On the Road

Retrospective by Simon Warner, Rock and the Beat Generation, 2 February 2022

Kerouac's most famous book is obviously first and foremost a written text. But the refrains of music ripple through its rolling adventures and there are ...

The Residents: Aaron Tanner: The Residents – A Sight For Sore Eyes Vol. 1

Book Review by Irina Shtreis, Louder Than War, 3 February 2022

A Sight For Sore Eyes Vol. 1 celebrates the story of the Residents – extreme art propagators and underground musicians who influenced the likes of ...

Angel Witch, Def Leppard, Diamond Head, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica, Raven, Samson, Saxon, Venom: Michael Hann: Denim and Leather — The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (Constable)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, Financial Times, 15 February 2022

AS INELEGANT acronyms go, NWOBHM was at least onomatopoeic: an approximation of metal's thudding, bludgeoning bass registers. Certainly the "New Wave Of British Heavy Metal", ...

Delines, The : The Delines: Two If By Sea

Report and Interview by Steven R Rosen, Rock & Roll Globe, 12 March 2022

Willy Vlautin and Amy Boone overcome the odds to create their best album with The Sea Drift. ...

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. ...

Tom Waits: Alex Harvey: Song Noir – Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles (Reaktion Books)

Book Review by Simon Warner, Rock and the Beat Generation, July 2022

I REVIEWED Rickie Lee Jones' vividly illuminating autobiography Last Chance Texaco in these pages earlier this year, applying a Beat microscope to her always energetic, ...

Marc Bolan, David Bowie, The Deviants, Mick Farren, New York Dolls, Roxy Music, T. Rex: Peter Stanfield: Pin-Ups 1972 (Reaktion)

Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, The Critic, August 2022

ROCK'N'ROLL years are all the rage these days. Ever since Jon Savage published his monumental 1966 (in 2015), the anni – particularly the 1970s – ...

"I Killed Christgau with My Big F*****g Dick". US indie magazines of the '80s and '90s

Book Excerpt by Paul Gorman, 'Totally Wired' (Thames & Hudson), September 2022

This is an excerpt from Paul's book Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press (Thames & Hudson, 2022) ...

Jann Wenner on Rolling Stone: "Some reviews were just insufferably nasty"

Interview by Jim Farber, The Guardian, 16 September 2022

The founder of the legendary magazine discusses his rise to the top, navigating famous friendships and hiding his sexuality ...

Kate Bush: 'Under the Ivy' on The Tube, 1986

Book Excerpt by Tom Doyle, Nine Eight Books, October 2022

RAMSHACKLE AND FUNNY, chaotic and controversial, Channel 4's live-to-air music show The Tube flew in the face of the glossy pop cultural trends of the ...

The Beatles' Revolver: A report and five rave reviews

Retrospective by Various Writers, Rock's Backpages, October 2022

1: Revolver is Title for New Beatle LP Tony Barrow, KRLA Beat, 13 August 1966 ...

Clive Davis and Arista Records

Book Excerpt by Mitchell Cohen, 'Looking for the Magic' (Trouser Press Books), Summer 2022

This is the second of two excerpts on RBP from Mitchell Cohen's book Looking for the Magic: New York City, the '70s and the Rise ...

Larry Uttal and Bell Records

Book Excerpt by Mitchell Cohen, 'Looking for the Magic' (Trouser Press Books), Summer 2022

This is the first of two excerpts on RBP from Mitchell Cohen's book Looking for the Magic: New York City, the '70s and the Rise ...

Paul Gorman: Totally Wired – The Rise & Fall of the Music Press (Thames & Hudson)

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, January 2023

THE HOME computer and its promiscuous offspring the internet were wrecking balls, demolishing much that was worth treasuring. Amidst the debris they left behind, the ...

Adele Bertei: Showtime!

Book Excerpt by Adele Bertei, 'Twist: An American Girl' (ZE Books), April 2023

This is an excerpt from Adele's memoir Twist: An American Girl, published by ZE Books in April 2023. ...

Pete Brown and His Battered Ornaments, Pete Brown's Piblokto, Cream: Pete Brown: Superstar poet and Cream of the crop

Obituary by Simon Warner, Rock and the Beat Generation, 20 May 2023

BACK IN 2010, in the heart of the most bitter January I can recall, I visited the home of Pete Brown with a BBC radio ...

Big Joe Turner: Feel So Fine

Book Excerpt by Tony Burke, Hardinge Simpole Books, June 2023

This is Tony's foreword to Derek Coller's biography Big Joe Turner – Feel So Fine ...

Paul Jones, Manfred Mann: Monday, December 4, 1972

Book Excerpt by Harold Bronson, 'Time Has Come Today' (Trouser Press Books), September 2023

I RECEIVED a letter (dated November 21) from Paul Jones, the original lead singer of Manfred Mann, thanking me for an album I had sent ...

Richard Hell: What Just Happened (Winter Editions)

Book Review by Raphael Rubinstein, The Brooklyn Rail, September 2023

THE TITLE OF Richard Hell's new collection of poems and prose, What Just Happened, can be taken in several ways. It could be referring to ...

Hollywood Swinging: Joan Didion in '60s L.A.

Book Excerpt by Evelyn McDonnell, 'The World According to Joan Didion' (4th Estate), October 2023

An excerpt from Evelyn's biography, published in the UK by 4th Estate. ...

Lou Reed: Introduction

Book Excerpt by Will Hermes, 'The King of New York' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), October 2023

...

Slade: Daryl Easlea: Whatever Happened To Slade? When The Whole World Went Crazee (Omnibus)

Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, November 2023

AT LAST! At last an author with insight, sympathy and commitment has written a substantial book about Slade that dissects the highs and lows of ...

John Peel, The Undertones: Terri Hooley: I Need Excitement

Book Excerpt by Stuart Bailie, Dig With It Books, November 2023

NOTE: This is an excerpt from Seventy-Five Revolutions, Stuart Bailie's book about the legendary owner of Belfast's Good Vibrations record store. Buy the book here. ...

The Beatles: You say you don't want a 'Revolution 9'

Book Excerpt by Michel Faber, 'Listen: On Music, Sound and Us' (Canongate), November 2023

In this excerpt from "The siren call of horrible din", the eighth section of his Listen: On Music, Sound and Us (Canongate), Michel explains why ...

Keef Hartley, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Frank Zappa: Neil Slaven, 1944-2023

Obituary by Tony Burke, Rock's Backpages, January 2024

RECORD PRODUCER, researcher, author and discographer Neil Slaven, who died on December 23rd aged 79, was one of the leading lights of the 1960s British ...

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