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Andrew Purcell

Andrew Purcell

For four years, Andrew Purcell wrote BBC 6 Music's Gig Guide, earning a handful of admirers and a truckload of abuse for slagging off Keane, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian and the Killers, among others. In 2005 he moved to New York, resolved to do some proper writing again, and now freelances for the BBC, The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Herald. He has had the privilege of interviewing David Byrne, Johnny Marr, Dion, Arthur Lee, Ian Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Damon Albarn and Debbie Harry, and feels very lucky to have done so.

Andrew Purcell online

27 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

The Good Bad & The Queen, Gorillaz: Gorillaz

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Independent, 12 April 2006

THERE ARE GHOSTS at the Apollo. Bobby Byrd holds his master's cape, the amateur night regulars bawl, shimmy and shake, and Fats Gonder asks "are ...

Art Brut

Profile and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Big Takeover, June 2006

ART BRUT'S guitars lean against gently buzzing amplifiers as the back room of Brooklyn's Sound Fix Records slowly clears out. The penultimate gig of their ...

Don't Mention The War – Unless You're Over 50

Comment by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 23 June 2006

NEIL YOUNG'S latest album, Living With War, was supposed to be more than a collection of protest songs. To optimistic critics of the occupation of ...

Katie Melua: Talk The talk

Report and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 11 August 2006

Katie Melua wants to crack America. Andrew Purcell hears how she plans to do it — from playing to overexcited housewives to targeting chat shows. ...

Dion: "I saw the devil himself"

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 15 December 2006

He's been a doo-wop legend, a heroin addict, a protest singer and a Phil Spector protege: now Dion's a Grammy-nominated bluesman. Andrew Purcell met him ...

Rosanne Cash

Interview by Andrew Purcell, Sunday Herald, January 2007

JOHNNY CASH lives with his daughter. He's in the set of her jaw, the power of her voice, and he stares down proudly from every ...

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Profile and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Independent, 12 January 2007

TWO YEARS AGO, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah proved that popular music's rules have changed. The old logic of rise and fall still applies though, ...

David Byrne: Imelda – The Nightclub Years

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 29 January 2007

DAVID BYRNE KEEPS a small black diary on his bookcase, with 'DB – Idears' written on the spine in gold ink. Without rifling through its ...

Rufus Wainwright: A Year Of Living Judy Garland

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Independent, 14 February 2007

THERE IS AN anecdote that Rufus Wainwright enjoys telling about his childhood fascination with Judy Garland. "I wanted to be Dorothy – on good days," ...

Swamp Dogg Bites Back

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 15 June 2007

"WHEN I FELT like I needed profanity, I used profanity," Swamp Dogg begins. And as he cheerfully swears his way through his 50 years in ...

Ornette Coleman

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 29 June 2007

THIS AFTERNOON I will meet Ornette Coleman, the world's greatest living jazz musician. Coleman is an iconoclast's iconoclast, Lou Reed's hero, a saxophonist who plays ...

Damon Albarn, Blur, Gorillaz: Damon Albarn: The Great Escape

Report and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Independent, 12 April 2008

THERE ARE GHOSTS at the Apollo. Bobby Byrd holds his master's cape, the amateur night regulars bawl and shimmy, and Fats Gonder asks: "Are you ...

Herbie Hancock (2008)

Interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages audio, November 2008

The piano great on the great '63 Miles Davis Quintet, band democracy, Buddhism, commercialism and much more.

File format: mp3; file size: 52.1mb, interview length: 56' 55" sound quality: *****

Herbie Hancock: Herbie Rides Again

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 7 November 2008

He has enjoyed electro, pop and funk incarnations but, as Herbie Hancock tells Andrew Purcell, it's all about playing one right note ...

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: Grandmaster Flash (2009)

Interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages audio, 2009

Flash talks about his latest album The Bridge, but then takes us back to the Bronx in the mid-'70s, his technical innovations, experiences with Sugar Hill records, and his addiction and the lost years.

File format: mp3; file size: 61.8mb, interview length: 1h 07' 31" sound quality: ****

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: Grandmaster Flash (2009) [transcript]

Audio transcript of interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 2009

This is a transcript of Andrew's audio interview with Flash. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: Grandmaster Flash: All Hands On Deck

Profile and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 27 February 2009

They thought he was mad, they spat him off stage, he hit the drugs... But Grandmaster Flash gave 'DJ' a whole new meaning. Andrew Purcell ...

Jeffrey Lewis: The Neurotic from New York: Jeffrey Lewis

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 13 April 2009

A FEW YEARS AGO, Jeffrey Lewis wrote a song called 'Sal's Pizza Has Sold Out To The Yuppie Scum', complaining about the rising cost of ...

TV On The Radio's Curse

Report and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Big Takeover, 12 October 2009

TV ON THE RADIO are victims of their own success. After three albums, they are indisputably the most critically adored band in the western world, ...

Phoenix: By the Time They Get to… Phoenix

Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 23 October 2009

GROWING UP IN Versailles, an affluent suburb of Paris, the four boys who would eventually form Phoenix bonded over their love of American pop culture. ...

Sufjan Stevens's symphony for New York

Report and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 27 October 2009

THE BROOKLYN-QUEENS EXPRESSWAY is a miserable stretch of road. The BQE, as New Yorkers call it, has narrow lanes, no hard shoulder, countless potholes, and ...

The National: Gloomy … with a Hint of Sunshine

Report and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 22 April 2010

IT WAS PAST SIX in the morning, in the bar of Bono's hotel in Dublin. The members of the National and REM were seated around ...

The Black Keys: "It's ridiculous to say that we play the blues"

Report and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 9 July 2010

FOR EIGHT MONTHS NOW, since the end of a relationship, the Black Keys drummer Pat Carney has been living in New York's Lower East Side. ...

Local Natives: Clockwork from Orange County

Profile and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 11 November 2010

After years of honing their tight harmonies, southern Californians Local Natives are breaking out. But they've suffered a few comparisons too many. ...

Johnny Flynn's Special Relationship

Profile and Interview by Andrew Purcell, The Guardian, 2 December 2010

Johnny Flynn followed his childhood sweetheart to New York, then came back and fired up the English antifolk scene. He tells Andrew Purcell about a ...

Steve Martin (2011)

Interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages audio, May 2011

The comedian/bluegrass picker Steve Martin talks about banjos, learning to play, his long association with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and more.

File format: mp3; file size: 27.4mb, interview length: 29' 58" sound quality: *****

The Black Keys (2011)

Interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages audio, May 2011

Messrs. Auerbach and Carney rap about classic American recording studios, working with Danger Mouse, Ike Turner, the Blackroc project with Damon Dash, and their Brothers and Attack & Release albums.

File format: mp3; file size: 45.6mb, interview length: 49' 48" sound quality: ***

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