Dave Thompson
Dave Thompson is the author of over 100 rock books and encyclopaedias, including the first-ever books on U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Depeche Mode and Sparks (summer 2009). Other publications include biographies of David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, Cream and the Jeff Beck Group, and the recent (2008-2009) volumes I Hate New Music, Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell and London's Burning: True Adventures on the Frontlines of Punk 1976-1977.
76 articles
List of articles in the library
Bruce Foxton: Camden Palace, London
Live Review by Dave Thompson, Melody Maker, 15 September 1984
THE EIGHTEEN months since You Know Who finally called it a day have been reasonably kind to Brother Foxton. So he's not quite at ...
Stewart Copeland: The Rhythmatist
Review by Dave Thompson, Melody Maker, 1 June 1985
COME ON, Stewart! Personal expression is all very well, and we all know that, beneath those candy floss classics you make with the rest of ...
Mick Ronson, Sandy Dillon: Sandy Dillon And Mick Ronson: Ronnie Scotts, London
Live Review by Dave Thompson, Melody Maker, 17 August 1985
FIRST some background. ...
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 7 February 1992
NO ONE could ever have predicted it, but the Damned are the great survivors of punk. ...
Review by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, April 1992
THIS IS NOT A pretty record. This is an ugly record, and I don't know if we should take that as a good sign or ...
Review by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, October 1992
Dear Mrs Ramone, Just a quick note to let you know how the boys are, these days. ...
David Bowie: Black Tie, White Noise
Review by Dave Thompson, The Rocket, May 1993
IN THE DECADE since his last truly successful album, Let's Dance, David Bowie has undergone any number of changes, each of them as dramatic as ...
Nirvana: The Boys Are Back In Town
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, October 1993
Go ahead. Hate this band, it's the cool thing to do. The punk rockers hate them because they've "sold out"; the mainstream hates them because ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, unpublished, 1994
TELL US HOW you became Cliff Richard… ...
Genesis P-Orridge, Throbbing Gristle: Genesis P and the Chili Pepper’s Pee
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1994
GENESIS P-ORRIDGE left the UK almost two years ago, hounded out by one of those peculiarly English sexsational witch-hunts that the home authorities apparently relish. ...
Black Sabbath: The Second Coming of Black Sabbath (According to Geezer Butler)
Interview by Dave Thompson, The Rocket, 1994
IT WASN'T ALWAYS this way, you know. There was a time when, if you mentioned that you liked Black Sabbath... if you mentioned that ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Local Geek Makes Good: Smashing Pumpkins
Profile and Interview by Dave Thompson, Creem, January 1994
YOU MADE IT, THEN? You didn't kill yourself on the way? ...
Morrissey, The Smiths: Morrissey and The Smiths: There's A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 4 March 1994
IN JUNE 1984, Rolling Stone journalist James Henke asked Britain's latest rising superstar, Smiths vocalist Morrissey, for his opinions on the British Prime Minister, Margaret ...
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 1 April 1994
SHE DOESN'T do it deliberately, she says, but you can set your watch by Lulu, and the most surprising thing is, she still takes everyone ...
Depeche Mode: Faith And Devotion
Discography by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 27 May 1994
DEPECHE MODE emerged from within one of the most confused periods British pop has ever undergone, a period during which punk's predatory napalm was still ...
Lloyd Cole: Causing a Commotion: Lloyd Cole
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1995
AT THE BEGINNING, he seemed tailor-made for rock stardom. Young, good-looking and menacingly literate, Lloyd Cole exploded out of nowhere (well, Scotland actually) in ...
Robyn Hitchcock, The Soft Boys: Robyn Hitchcock Rocks Groovily On
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, B-Side, 1995
ROBYN HITCHCOCK is confused. At least, he's as confused as anyone who's been told they'll be called by a writer in America, with all the ...
Willie "Loco" Alexander: The Persistence of Willie ‘Loco’ Alexander
Interview by Dave Thompson, Creem, 1995
YOU DON'T HAVE to be mad to like Willie Alexander's new album (and it doesn't particularly matter if you are), but from the moment The ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie And The Banshees: The Shriek's Back
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, April 1995
SIOUXSIE'S PISSED. Eight hours into another day of interviews, several dozen stories up Geffen's New York headquarters, and she can't have a cigarette. People say ...
Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll: Brian Auger: Back From Oblivion
Discography by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 14 April 1995
BRING UP the subject of jazz-rock fusion, and for sure Brian Auger will be one of the first names you think of. Over the past ...
Afghan Whigs get Soulful on Their New LP, Black Love
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Rolling Stone, November 1995
JOE PIXIE IS PISSED. TWO FEET TALL, with a voice like a pubescent munchkin, he has been phoning around local fast-food joints trying to get ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 24 November 1995
THERE ARE only a handful of rock managers who truly deserve the epithet great, those whose reputations have lived on long after the sell-by date ...
The Dandy Warhols: Just Dandy Warhols
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1996
"I THOUGHT PEOPLE only came to places like this to get laid." Dandy Warhols frontman Courtney Taylor inspects one of Seattle's finest niteries, winces ...
Skinny Puppy: Last Rites for Skinny Puppy
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1996
THE RUMOURS BEGAN long before the truth caught up with them. The new Skinny Puppy, the latest Skinny Puppy, the last Skinny Puppy, the ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1996
MIDWAY THROUGH Neglected Murderesses, artist Edward Gorey's gallery of feasibly fictional ghoulesses, we meet Sarah Jane "Batears" Olafsen, a cold-hearted killer who "hacked to collops" ...
Nirvana: The Kurt Cobain Memorial
Interview by Dave Thompson, Q, April 1996
Four days after Kurt Cobain's suicide, thousands gathered in his home city to attend the event that became his public funeral, falling somewhere between touching ...
Kirsty MacColl: They Don't Know (Yet)
Discography by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 13 September 1996
SHE'S BEEN AROUND for such a long time now, she admits she's a part of the furniture, "part of the rock 'n' roll consciousness." ...
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
HE'S A DIFFICULT bugger, everyone says so. David McAlmont said so, as he walked away from a potentially chart-topping partnership, complaining the guitarist was ...
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
POSING TOPLESS might not be the most unusual way of getting attention these days, but at least when Lamb did it, for a recent promo ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
THEY'RE THE HOTTEST new British band in 15 minutes, and pretty much the best in almost an hour, but as Mansun set about their first ...
Black Grape: Straight to Stupid: Black Grape
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
DANNY SABER'S been a busy boy. Produced the Rolling Stones, remixed David Bowie, and then seven weeks recording the new Black Grape album, climbing ...
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
IT'S AMAZING what you can pack into a year. Take John Squire for example: he made an album and jammed with Oasis. He ...
Sweet: The Sweet: As Sweet As It Was
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 28 February 1997
FEW BANDS ever led a life full of as many personalities as The Sweet. In their British homeland, they were as unfashionable as last year's ...
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, September 1997
ANYONE PAYING attention to the British music scene in recent years cannot help but have noticed T.V. Smith. Across three superlative albums, 1991's RIP: Everything ...
The Small Faces: Steve Marriott: The Lost Interview
Profile and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 12 September 1997
(With the exception of the Peter Frampton quote, the following interviews were carried out in London in early 1982 for a projected biography of John's ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Culture Clash: The Return Of The 50 Foot Gender Benders
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1998
"LIAM GALLAGHER is so sexy! There’s not much irony in the things Liam says, it’s just pent up rotweiler frustration. But honey, I ...
Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love: Kurt Cobain: Double Fantasy
Report by Dave Thompson, MOJO, May 1998
Kurt Cobain, the rock martyr; Courtney Love, the widow who wants it all. In the years since his death, the question "What really happened?" has ...
Gene Vincent: A Record Collector's Guide To Gene Vincent
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 1999
IT WAS IAN DURY, himself the creator of some of the greatest records of his era, who hit the nail on the head, in one ...
Dot Allison, One Dove: Dot Allison in the Afterglow
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1999
FAR BE IT from anyone to laugh at a label which drops the Chemicals and Andrew Weatherall, and keeps Scotland's answer to St Etienne instead, ...
Coal Chamber: Get Yer Scuttles Out: Coal Chamber
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1999
DEZ SOUNDS genuinely horrified. "You can't do that! I'll be naked!" And, though it probably takes a lot to shock him, the ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1999
HE BROUGHT YOUR SICKEST FANTASIES to life, and now you, poor fools, have fulfilled his. When Broadway wheels out the new millennial Jesus Christ ...
The Sex Pistols: Nils Stevenson
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1999
YOU'VE PROBABLY heard this before, but this time it's true. The best Punk book yet has just hit the streets, written by someone who were ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1999
NOW IS PROBABLY not the best time to say it, but they look like Devo. Those boiler suits with bar-codes on them, those crazy ...
Jeff Beck: Who Else But Jeff Beck?
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Experience Hendrix, 1999
IN 1985, WITH A NEW single, "People Get Ready," reuniting him with vocalist Rod Stewart for the first time since 1969, Jeff Beck was lined ...
Ronnie Spector Talks to Rainbows
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, Fall 1999
SHE WAS ONE of the voices of the American 60s, the purest element in Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound, the heartbeat of an entire generation's ...
Chad & Jeremy: The Chad and Jeremy Story
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2000
WHEN CHAD AND JEREMY were first invited to re-group, back in 1986 for the following year's British Invasion II tour, their first response was, "Hmmm, ...
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2001
ANYONE ABSORBING the Australian airwaves back in 1981 will have encountered any number of strange and wonderful things. Few, however, have stood the test ...
The Doors: Jim Morrison: Death On The Instalment Plan
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, MOJO, September 2001
JIM MORRISON LAY IN A BATHTUB FULL OF WATER drawn from the same mystic spring that fed Brian Jones's swimming pool. The flesh over his ...
Love and Rockets: Lift Off: Love And Rockets
Report and Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 2002
YOU COULD, MAYBE, be forgiven if you weren't expecting Love And Rockets to be dropping by to play, just yet. It was, after all, ...
Andrew Loog Oldham… And The Salty Tale Of Sandy Beach
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2002
POP STARDOM is about creating myths and sticking to them. ...
Flo & Eddie, Frank Zappa, T. Rex: Flo and Eddie and Marc, Frank and More
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2002
THEY WERE THE VOICE of the American 1960s, sainted providers of the angelic harmonies and grooved-out choruses that served up the most innocent psychedelia your ...
Flo & Eddie, Frank Zappa: Zappa And The Mothers – The Flo And Eddie Years
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2002
BETWEEN MID-1970 and the end of 1971, Frank Zappa was at his peak as rock’s premier satirist and spokesman, an 18-month period during which he ...
Motörhead, The Pink Fairies, Larry Wallis: Larry Wallis: The Importance Of Being Stiff
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, July 2002
IF YOU KNOW anything about Stiff Records, the first great maverick Indy label of the punk-era British 1970s, you’ll know Larry Wallis. Author of one ...
Steve Ashley Passes The Test Of Time
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2003
AMID THE MYRIAD names thrown up by the English Folk-Rock boom of the early 1970s, the era most succinctly summarised by the legendary Electric Muse ...
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2003
MENTION THE NAME of the Jook a decade or so ago, and chances are, you'd be met with a blank gaze from anybody outside of ...
Sandy Dillon: Nobody's Sweetheart
Review by Dave Thompson, AllMusic.com, 2004
TWENTY YEARS ON from the unreleased LP that should have established her as a superstar-in-waiting, the mid-'80s set recorded with Mick Ronson, New York singer/songwriter ...
The Velvet Underground: The Last Days of the Velvet Underground
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2004
ON AUGUST 23, 1970, Lou Reed played his last ever show with the Velvet Underground, the band he had led since its formation as psychotic ...
Spencer Davis Group: The Spencer Davis Group
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 2 April 2004
ALTHOUGH THE Spencer Davis Group are best remembered for propelling the young Stevie Winwood to prominence, paving the way for Traffic, Blind Faith and, of ...
Medicine Head: John Fiddler Recalls… Medicine Head
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, July 2004
IT’S ONE OF THE modern collector’s last remaining joys, compiling long and bitter lists of the albums we’d most like to see released on CD, ...
Vodka Collins: Glam Rock, Japanese Style
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, November 2004
THINK OF '70s Glam Rock and you will inevitably find yourself transported to the United Kingdom and the brief, but brilliant couple of years during ...
Fleetwood Mac: What Happened Before All That Happened Later On…
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, February 2005
THEY ARE Fleetwood Mac's forgotten years. Mick Fleetwood's Fleetwood autobiography dedicates just thirty pages to them, Peter Lewry's The Complete Recording Sessions turns ...
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 17 May 2006
THE ODD thing about the history of punk is, it's very easy to forget some of its best progenitors. ...
Roogalator: Footnote Archives: Roogalator
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, September 2006
IT'S EARLY morning on regional breakfast television, and the morning's entertainment includes a local performer who, with close to 40 years of experience behind him, ...
Review by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 19 January 2007
IT'S BEEN 27 YEARS since Robert Plant last sang with Led Zeppelin… a lifetime for the likes of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain; ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, May 2007
OF ALL THE bands thrown up by the Punk insurgency of 1977 (30 years ago today, folks! Get your Sergeant Leper facemasks here!), XTC were ...
Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll: Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, July 2007
IT WAS ONE of the most memorable hit singles of the late 1960s, an hypnotic, walking bass led swirl through an unreleased Bob Dylan song, ...
Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds: Led Zeppelin: Pre-Flyte
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, July 2007
THE YARDBIRDS were no more. After five years, four guitarists, and more legends than you could stuff inside a shoe shop, the band had finally ...
The Doors In 1967: From Zeroes To Heroes In Six Months Flat
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, August 2007
"I've always been attracted to ideas that were about revolt against authority. When you make your peace with authority, you become an authority. I like ...
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, MOJO, Summer 2007
IT'S PROBABLY heresy to say it aloud and there's several hundred Best Psychedelic Album In The World... Ever type compilations that can shoot the thought ...
Jimi Hendrix: Remade in Britain
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, MOJO, Summer 2007
DATELINE: LONDON, January 29, 1967. It was, if such archaic terminology could still be employed, the ultimate Battle of the Bands, trans-Atlantic style. ...
Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll: Whatever happened to the Driscoll-Auger Trinity?
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 24 April 2008
IN AN AGE awash with supergroups, the 1960s combination of singer Julie Driscoll with Brian Auger and his Trinity was poised to become the most ...
Pink Floyd: See You On The Dark Side Of The Moon
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 7 August 2008
THE STATISTICS, as Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason puts it, "make staggering reading." ...
Book Excerpt by Dave Thompson, 'June 1st, 1974', 2013
Excerpt from the book June 1st, 1974: Kevin Ayers, John Cale, Nico, Eno, Mike Oldfield and Robert Wyatt – The Greatest Supergroup Of The Seventies ...
Interview by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, June 2013
HE IS, OF COURSE, Mr. Tubular Bells and, regular as clockwork, the 40th anniversary of the release of his greatest hit delivers what a lot ...
Blue Orchids: Awefull, The Once and Future Thing/The Battle of Twisted Heel
Review by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 19 April 2016
RECALLING MARTIN Bramah from his time with the Fall, it would have been easily to assume that his next project would meander in similar directions. ...
The Idle Race: The Birthday Party (Deluxe Edition)
Review by Dave Thompson, Goldmine, 5 March 2020
NO MATTER HOW many copybooks Jeff Lynne may have blotted with the bloated conceit of the Electric Light Orchestra, there's no denying that the lad ...
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