Don Watson
Don Watson wrote for the NME in the '80s and was - with Michael Bracewell and Mark Edwards - part of The Quick End. He is the author of Dancing in the Streets: Tales from World Cup City (1994).
60 articles
List of articles in the library
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 24 September 1983
POCKET BILLIARDS ...
Marc Almond: Revenge Of The Sleazebag
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 8 September 1984
AS LONDON swelters, there's one back alley in Soho's underarm narrow enough to escape the sun's onslaught. Damp and dingy it seems to seep moisture ...
Laurie Anderson: More Blank Than Frank
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 7 June 1986
AS SHE confides to us in her live show, Laurie Anderson was a bird in a previous incarnation. ...
The Associates, Billy Mackenzie: Spoilt Brat, Silly Prat Or Visionary Genius?: Billy Mackenzie
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 10 September 1983
ONLY A YEAR AGO The Associates seemed to have the world at their feet; with three hit singles behind them and their first tour in ...
The Band of Holy Joy: Band Of Holy Joy: The Big Ship Sails
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 24 May 1986
AND SO the shock of the new continues to give way to the celebration of the old. ...
The Band Of Holy Joy: The Loneliness Of The Late Night Drinker
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 20 December 1986
1986 was the year that Englishness made a comeback, and no one caught its multi-faceted moods of gloom and nostalgia better than THE BAND OF ...
The Beastie Boys, Slayer: Def Jam Records: Men Or Beasties?
Report and Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 11 January 1986
IN CRUMPLED, jeans, trainers and an AC/DC T-shirt Rick Rubin represents the current hippest record company in New York, Def Jam Records. ...
Adele Bertei, Culture Club: Adele Bertei: Contorted Into Culture
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984
This is ADELE BERTEI, the new one in that Club. DON WATSON files the scoop. ...
The Birthday Party, Nick Cave: Nick Cave: If This Is Heaven I'm Bailing Out
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984
THE ENIGMA of The Birthday Party, like that of Kaspar Hauser, begins with grunts in the darkness and ends in murder. ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 31 March 1984
TO SAY that Black Flag's Damaged was the punk LP of 1981, is tantamount to (if I may be allowed to lapse for a moment ...
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 15 September 1984
RUN! THIS can't be happening! The headlights of the car bearing down on Greg Ginn and Bill Stevenson capture two slack-jawed faces, stark with astonishment, ...
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 ...
Can, Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt: Can: Paladium, Cologne, Germany
Live Review by Don Watson, The Wire, May 1999
DURING THEIR heyday in the mid-70s, Can put great emphasis on the subjugation of the individual to the sound of the group. At their best ...
Cocteau Twins: The Cocteau Twins: Fun From Falkirk - Fat Chance?
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 6 November 1982
FRIDAY night is cardboard-box-kicking night. ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 11 October 1986
SO, THE last two, troubled decades of Miles Davis — from Voodoo to Tutu, from the blistering frustration of On The Corner to the comfortable ...
Depeche Mode: Deconstruction Time Again
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 20 December 1984
You thought they were prissy pinkos. But no! They drink, talk to girls, wear leather mini-skirts! Don Watson walks tall with Depeche Mode, the new ...
Divine: The First Lady of Filth
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 12 March 1983
Divine pits his 300lbs of solid glamour against Elizabeth Taylor, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler. Don Watson referees. ...
Brian Eno: Man Out Of Time: Brian Eno
Interview by Don Watson, Spin, May 1989
"IS THIS 1962 OR 20 YEARS ON?" asked the sleeve notes of the first Roxy Music LP, the record that introduced Brian Eno to the ...
Eurythmics: 1984: For The Love of Big Brother (Virgin)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 17 November 1984
WAR IS Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, Ignorance Is Strength and this soundtrack LP with the logo of Radford's 1984 on its cover is not the ...
Everything But The Girl: Eden (Blanco Y Negro)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
CONCEIVED IN the bedroom (as was much great music) Eden has been hermetically sealed so none of its sensitivity should leak out in transit, and ...
Faust: The Faust Tapes: Faust Epiphany
Retrospective by Don Watson, The Wire, September 2000
ONE OF THE EFFECTS of the rabid reissue programs that accompanied the CD revolution was to offer shrinkwrapped package tours into your teenage bedrom. Music, ...
Bob Geldof: Live Aid: Transmission Of Mercy
Comment by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 20 July 1985
JUST ABOUT the time that the 70,000 in the centre of the mediarena were filing, as instructed, towards the exits, I was emerging from the ...
The Go-Betweens: Up From Down Under
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 26 November 1983
HOW TOUCHINGLY ENGLISH this all is. Outside in the late autumn Notting Hill Gate landscape shoppers shuffle through the leaves, surprised at the novelty of ...
The Go-Betweens: King's College, London
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 4 June 1983
DON WATSON SEES THE GLINT ON THE EDGE OF THE GO-BEES' POP KNIFE ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 9 March 1985
THESE ARE fast times that we live in, something that dawned upon Hüsker Dü long before New Day Rising glimpsed the light. ...
James: Strip-mine (Blanco Y Negro LP/Cassette/CD)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 1 October 1988
THE FIRST thing to say is that this is not the LP that James are capable of. By today's standards certainly it's excellent, but it's ...
James, Wire: Wire, James: Bloomsbury Theatre, London
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 3 August 1985
SPARKLY JAMES HARVEST ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain: The Jesus And Mary Chain: Unchained Melody
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 14 September 1985
Fourth single and an LP coming up? Surely THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN aren't becoming veterans? DON WATSON chronicles the rise of the best bit ...
Grace Jones: Slave To The Rhythm (ZTT)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 2 November 1985
THE SCENE: An unwashed and impolitely dazed Paul Morley stumbles into the ZTT offices one day. "But Trevor, the people are hungry for imagination, stimulation, ...
Richard H. Kirk: Sound Tracked
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 5 May 1984
IT DOESN'T take too long to suss that Richard Kirk's medium is The Image – here's a man who's ill at ease with The Word. ...
Madness: A Serious Case Of Madness
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 10 August 1985
No longer just Nutty Boys, MADNESS have grown into troubled and doubting pop commentators on the English way of life. DON WATSON traces the Four ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 12 July 1986
"SO I'M HERE looking through an old picture frame/Waiting for a perfect view/I hope something special will come into my life/Another fine edition of you" ...
Marine Girls: Lazy Ways (Cherry Red)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 26 March 1983
YO HO HO IT'S THE NEW SENSITIVITY ...
Matchbox, Tammy Wynette: Tammy Wynette: Wembley Conference Centre, London
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 16 April 1983
DANG MA POONS!* * Lit: Make mine a whiskey sour and a marriage on the rocks. ...
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 6 August 1988
Is MOMUS (aka NICK CURRIE) a voyeur, ex-rent boy and semi necrophile? Or is he merely writing a rock'n'roll bad reputation for himself? DON WATSON ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 10 November 1984
AS THE blue dawn pours in through the shutters, Alison Moyet stares from the cover of her first solo LP with a look that immediately ...
Nico: "Watch Out, The World's Behind You"
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 3 August 1985
From the mists of time steps a pale, haggard figure with a handful of memories and a single like a photo of the '50s. NICO, ...
Gary Numan: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 29 October 1983
BARBIE'S BOYFRIEND IN BONDAGE GEAR ...
Orange Juice: Texas Fever (Polydor)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 10 March 1984
TO MAKE things clear from the start, Texas Fever arouses an excitement I thought I may be in danger of forgetting, at least in connection ...
Gram Parsons: We'll Sweep Out The Ashes In The Morning
Retrospective by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 21 April 1985
"Death is a warm cloak. An old friend. I regard death as something that comes up on a roulette wheel every once in a while."Gram ...
Pet Shop Boys: Suburban Stardom
Essay by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 7 June 1986
England swings to the yawning sound of the suburbs, where Dynasty kids dream of escape and fortune. DON WATSON reflects on the hit and myth ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 4 October 1986
"I'M A real wild one." Iggy Pop, 1986. ...
Pussy Galore: Paw Little Rich Kids
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 17 December 1988
Using horrendous production and brattish titles PUSSY GALORE are fast and thrashing on the heels of The Buttholes and Sonic Youth. DON WATSON (clenched fists) ...
Rip Rig and Panic: Rip Rig & Panic: Rip Rig It Up And Start Again
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983
Their commercial failure was rigged, but they didn't panic. Now Don Watson discovers Rip Rig & Panic's new attitude. ...
Nina Simone: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 28 January 1984
NINA SIMONE finishes another song, totters to the front of the stage and stands, fixing the audience with a gaze that's as intent as it ...
Simple Minds: Sparkle In The Rain
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 11 February 1984
Give The Kerr A Bono ...
Simple Minds: Taking Kerr of Business
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983
SIMPLE MINDS: on the banks of a new gold dream? Or simply wet? DON WATSON fathoms it out with Jim Kerr ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie and the Banshees: The Howling
Retrospective by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986
SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES: "a great whirlpool of noise, pulling the future down." Many moons later DON WATSON recalls the dawn of the great Sioux ...
Sisters of Mercy: Razor Shock: Sisters of Mercy
Report and Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 1983
HOW ODD this all looks, reflected in the opaque black lenses of Wayne Hussey's absolutely Ian Hunter shades. ...
The Smiths: The Smiths (Rough Trade)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 25 February 1984
"And if you must go to work tomorrow Well, if I were you I wouldn't bother" ('Still Ill') ...
Soft Cell: Farewell My Lovely!
Report and Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 21 January 1984
Don Watson witnesses Soft Cell's glorious farewell concert and listens to Marc Almond kiss 'n' tell about his future plans to travel the world. ...
Sonic Youth: This Savage Breed: Sonic Youth: Kill Your Idols (Zensor, German Import)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 12 May 1984
"KILL YOUR IDOLS/With Sonic Death" — scrawled across the label and screamed across the searing noise, the statement of intent on the latest release by ...
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 29 March 1986
WHAT IS the sound of a Swan in love? ...
David Sylvian: Blonde On Blonde
Interview by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 23 August 1986
TWO YOUNG men, once blond, face one another and indulge in the absurd activity of taking music seriously. "Almost too seriously," says David Sylvian. The ...
The The: Soul Mining (Some Bizzare)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 22 October 1983
DIGGING FOR VICTORY ...
Book Review by Don Watson, The Wire, March 1999
JG BALLARD once said that rock journalism at its best was a medium for the "real news", a means of conveying what he called the ...
Johnny Thunders: Hurt Me (New Rose)
Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 28 January 1984
PAIN! ...
Tom Waits: Reigning Hats And Dogs: Tom Waits at the Dominion, London
Live Review by Don Watson, New Musical Express, 26 October 1985
COME INSIDE, the finger beckons and the man with the stubble breaks out a grin and leans in your direction... ...
List of genre pieces
Report and Interview by Don Watson, The Wire, September 2002
A survey of sounds from around the planet. This month: Don Watson travels deep inside Russia’s Volga Basin to eavesdrop on the region’s new electronica ...
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 ...
back to LIBRARY
