Ian Penman
(CUTS TRACKS & BRUISES//59-77-03)
1959
Born: Wiltshire, amid the shadows of strange neolithic statuary.
1960-69
Scotland, Middle East, Africa, Beirut, Cyprus.
1970-78
Norfolk
(‘Anti-climax? Wherever did you get that, herr Professor...’)
EARLY PIVOTs
Roy Orbison
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Jimi Hendrix esp ‘Voodoo Chile’
Roxy Music
Little Feat
Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Bootsy et al
Augustus Pablo, Big Youth, Culture, et al
circa mid-1970s
First published: RAF base ‘free paper’. A ‘Summer 45s’ round-up, inc. Millie Jackson, Swamp Dogg, The Jimmy Castor Bunch & vrs. impossibly obscure Deep Soul import 7"s. No copies extant. Not recommissioned.
circa 1976-77
Threatened with expulsion from Grammar School for thoughtless graffito. Literally thoughtless: the oxymoronic ‘ANARCHY RULES’. Also, for endangering prospects of two bigger ‘brighter’ boys: marooning them overnight on Liverpool St station the night before life-determining exams. Well, it was a LITTLE FEAT concert. How cool is that for your first gig and a lifetime memory which most Mojo writers would kill for?
IP breezes "A" in Art a-level ‘Representation of a Doo-wop trio, after Juan Gris’ and is due to attend Art School; deeply suspicious of Conceptual Art then prevalent, takes ‘year out’, working part time (and wholly Pro Plus) in a precinct jewellry store while hitch-hiking round country to Northern Soul nites and Punk gigs. Passed over in NME’s infamous ‘Hip Young Gunslinger’ round-up after submitting breathlessly laudatory review of Van Morrison’s wondrous (but achingly un-Hip) Veedon Fleece. Persistence is all: submits Live reviews of, inter alia, Blondie/Television, Heatwave, Tapper Zukie and Wire. Taken on as NME’s Norfolk stringer - like, right, Norfolk: WHERE THE HOT PUNK ACTION IS.
Autumn 1977
First NME review published: Only Ones/Stranglers, Cambridge Corn Exchange. (In hindsight: how odd that IP’s baptismal words should hymn the fey, drug-blitzed, overly literate & Romantic-dysfunctional Peter Perrett.)
August 1978
Transplants to London permanently on 19th birthday.
Same night:... Annette Peacock at the Lyceum, promoting X-Dreams. Sigh.
1978-82; 1983-1985: NME
Gets a kiss from Grace Jones.
Gets drunk with Paul Schrader.
Gets a kiss from Pat Phoenix.
Gets VERY VERY drunk with Nicolas Roeg.
Spring 1985
"The Roeg text was a demented cut-up of quotation, a dialectically unbalanced construction that refused to deliver comfortable Poalroids of its subject. It was, in itself, an artwork. A portrait in the form of a resignation note. The editors agreed, published half the piece and sent Penman his P45." Sinclair
Undated apocrypha
At pre-publication editorial meeting for the nascent Q, in which house style is set, the work of Penman-Morley is held up as everything Q is definitively NOT to be. A visibly choked Penman later tells Martin Bashir this is the proudest moment of his life.
1982-[present?]
"He was rumoured to be working on a magnum opus (he started the rumour), a book of essays on Billie Holiday and the blues." Sinclair
1983
Infamous CUTS TRACKS & BRUISES outline is rejected by Routledge Kegan Paul. Since when this (far-ranging, visionary, deeply flawed, etc) text has circulated in samizdat form across a series of computers owned by its author.
1985-86
Any takers? All/any info please contact IP at address below.
1986
Freelance work for:
The Face, Arena, Tatler, Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Sunday Correspondent, New Statesman. REpublished: Japan, America, Germany.
mid-late 80s
3rd best interview of all time: Charlotte Rampling, Arena.
7th best night out of all time: in Paris, w/ Nick Kent, to see Happy Mondays.
late 80s
Powerful 80s uber-agent nearly succeeds in bringing together IP and BRYAN FERRY for "official biography" made in some twisted Touch of Evil type hell. 1980s come and go with no sign of any such book. Phew.
early 90s
Resumes music writing for The Wire under inspired/deluded editorship of Mark Sinker.
early 90s
IP/Chris Petit submit proposal to BBC for (far ranging, visionary, deeply flawed, etc) music documentary series, working title REMIX CULTURE. 90s come and go with no sign of any such non-performance non-biography based music documentary. Phew... say Q, Mojo, Jools Holland et al.
Returns in earnest to music writing at The Wire [vrs harassed editors, passim].
Freelance work: Guardian, Harpers & Queen, Sight & Sound, Esquire, GQ, Dazed & Confused, Modern Review, Ikon.
1996
2nd proudest moment of life: Out-cools a visibly shaken Lou Reed, one-upping him with knowledge & possession of rare Icepick Slim spoken word CD.
1998
Publication of IP compilation: Vital Signs (Serpent's Tail). Reviews 98% positive -
"... whenever he sounds like any other rock critic, you must remind yourself that this stylist’s been tapping away since the early '80s. So it’s all his fault; but what separates him from his mimics at Time Out, or the publicists who call him the ‘coolest cultural critic on the planet’, is that he doesn’t just sound hard, he thinks hard."
Tom Payne, Observer
" Full of contradictions and witty one-liners, Penman uses language as an art form, playing with puns, synonyms, repetition, and punctuation for added effect. [...] Two decades of politics, music and pop culture with a whip-smart wit and wisdom that draws you in and doesn’t let go."
Julia Kenna, Rolling Stone
"Penman explores this post-publicity, post-exploitation ghost world better than anybody ... an exercise in time travel, a posthumous confession."
Iain Sinclair, London Review of Books
... etc; except for lukewarm reviews in The Daily Telegraph and ... The Wire.
1998
Nicest interviewee of all time aw gee shucks you don’t have to sign and give me that Bob really you don’t aw ...: Robert Frank.
2000
Wire article on ‘microphonics’ leads to invitation to lecture at Cinesonic conference, Melbourne. Original (far ranging, visionary, deeply flawed, etc) conceptual presentation abandoned when stereo speakers imprinted with the faces of Martin Heidegger and Marcus Garvey prove unavailable.
2000-2002
Lead reviewer, UNCUT; until contretemps involving insufficiently ass-kissy (but far ranging, visionary, etc) Elvis Costello review.
2003
Uncut wins Best Consumer Magazine award. Go figure.
hEXcerpts
‘The Shattered Glass’ in
Zoot Suits & Second Hand Dresses ed. Angela McRobbie [MacMillan 1989]
"Garvey’s Ghost > K L A N G! < Heidegger’s Geist" in:
Cinesonic 3 ed. Philip Brophy [AFTRS 2000]
‘ON THE MIC: How Amplification Changed The Voice for Good’ in: Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music [WIRE/Continuum 2002]
paperCUTS
Vital Signs [Serpents Tail 1998]
150 articles
List of articles in the library
Adam & The Ants, X-Ray Spex: X-Ray Spex, Adam & The Ants, The Automatics: The Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 20 May 1978
AS MS. POLY'S strychnine air-raid voice shreds the encore and all present, the audience front-line snaps. ...
Heatwave: West Runton Pavilion, Norfolk
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 17 June 1978
Waiting for the Getdown gestalt ...
Iggy Pop: Pure Pop……For Iggy People
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 24 June 1978
Iggy Pop: Music Machine, London ...
Slaughter and the Dogs: Do It Dog Style
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 29 June 1978
UNFORTUNATELY, A posthumous debut album. Quite something, not even the anti-Christ (Sex Pistols) managed to pull that off. But it is a rather sad, inevitably ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 July 1978
Reach Out, We'll Be There (Ha, Ha – Fooled You) ...
The Pop Group, This Heat: The Pop Group/This Heat: Collegiate Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 17 July 1978
TWO SEEMINGLY unconventional, superficially 'bleak', jagged modern-music outfits. Both engineer music suggesting radical departure, still somehow quaint. ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978
MAGAZINE, MYTHS AND MIRAGES ...
Wigwam: Dark Album; Jim Pembroke: Corporal Cauliflowers Mental Function
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978
OUTSIDE THE range of rock's organised trendy-treats industry, alien settlements and sentiments remain. Resolved. ...
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 19 August 1978
REEL-TO-REEL life: patt-ur stagg-urs on... In bu-tween the s-o-n-g-s... ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 9 September 1978
The Further Decline And Fall Of The Western World ...
Annette Peacock: A Rock & Role Alternative
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 23 September 1978
"I THINK what happened was, after I left New York all the anger and the toughness and the hostility seemed to dissipate – and in ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 30 September 1978
STUDIO TAN drops into the industry's autumn orgy unheralded. ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978
AND YES, this unfortunately is where it separates. 999's second album – always a fateful thing – and the illusory packaging hides a regression. ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978
"I'M NOT really interested in the quality of the film, what they furnish is an excuse to do some music...they're areas where I can experiment ...
John McLaughlin & The One Truth Band: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 14 October 1978
THIS WAS A celebration of John McLaughlin's 25th anniversary as a guitar player — an event similarly rnarked by the recent Electric Guitarist album, which ...
pragVEC: Another Strange, New And Enticing Pop Group
Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 21 October 1978
A NEW extended play record to enthuse about. A new band to sell to you. Their name is pragVEC; the four tracks they've recorded are ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 28 October 1978
POOP GO the wizened wastrels! The starry, clammy curtain rises once again, and here they are, still waiting. ...
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 28 October 1978
THIS YEAR'S Weather Report is twice as nice as last year's. And doubly dodgy. ...
The Clash: Black'n White Drop Outasite
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 4 November 1978
The Clash: Roxy Theatre, Harlesden ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 11 November 1978
WHAT HAS rock and roll got to do with poetry? What is a poetess doing with rock and roll? What am I doing reading and ...
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 11 November 1978
"Every night before I go to sleep/Find a ticket, win a lottery/Scoop the pearls up from the sea/Cash them in and..." ...
Pere Ubu: Dub Housing (Chrysalis)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 11 November 1978
Pop the Ubu ...
Bob Marley & The Wailers: Babylon By Bus
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 18 November 1978
ALL THE points are easily made. You have your join-the-dots special Christmas present package. Bob Marley and The Wailers skank in and out the Western ...
John Martyn: London School of Economics, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 18 November 1978
YOU DON'T need me at all – you know what happened, what will happen. ...
Julie Covington: Julie Covington
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 18 November 1978
MOVING BACK from stage to a studio, Ms Covington neatly avoids the cliches offered by the potentially drear and damaging Solo Album. ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 25 November 1978
JEAN-PAUL Sartre took mescaline once, to prove to himself that he wasn't necessarily the institution people thought he was, and as a result became convinced ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 25 November 1978
Grrrrnrrhhhh!!! Repressed reviewer laments a bird and her bush ...
Scritti Politti: Reflections On In(ter)dependence: Scritti Politti
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 25 November 1978
MEET SCRITTI Politti: three or four young musicians (one is a floating member), and equally important, a large circle of close friends who provide help, ...
Howard Devoto, Magazine: Howard Devoto: Calm And Confusion
Interview by Paul Morley, Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 2 December 1978
WERE YOU a wimp at school?I wouldn't say I was a wimp. I think I did get bullied. ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 9 December 1978
Systems of resonance ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 16 December 1978
I WAS wearing headphones. My teeth were aching again, and the lump behind my left ear was still as bad as ever. All 16 of ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 23 December 1978
THE "MOTHERSHIP" arrives. Everybody gets on out of it and has a "party". And I dance. And slump. And dance and slump. ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1979
ROCK AND ROLL survives on an illusion of dynamism built upon critical inertia, upon endlessly repeated truths such as the oft-heard oppositions of 'old/new wave' ...
Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (Tamla Motown)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 6 January 1979
IF THE LANGUAGE is clearly familiar, the filling clear, the concept perhaps a little cloying then at least, at length, the soul is back to ...
Jimmy Cliff: Give Thanx (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 13 January 1979
THIS RETURN to commercial visibility from the fated Mr Cliff has been well-received in certain corners, but unfortunately seems little more than a muddled, embarrassing ...
Throbbing Gristle: D.O.A. (The Third And Final Report Of Throbbing Gristle) (Industrial Records)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 13 January 1979
P. Orridge Bowls A Grisly Throb — P. Enman Ducks ...
The Runaways: And Now…The Runaways (Mercury)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 20 January 1979
THE TERMS are at once familiar and bizarre, charged with meaning and strangely vacuous: 'street,' 'action,' 'hungry and hot,' 'rock 'n' roll,' 'teenage,' 'weekend,' 'queen.' ...
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 10 February 1979
Terms For An Industry In The '80s... IAN PENMAN reports on the artistic and commercial concept of ROUGH TRADE, recorders, distributors and promoters of new ...
Sparks: No. 1 In Heaven (Virgin)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 17 March 1979
COME OUT, come out wherever you are! It safe now! Those critics'll love yez all again! ...
Misty In Roots: Misty: One more victim of the Southall riot
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 May 1979
"The scale of the violence in Southall, where 340 were arrested and more than 40 people were injured, has ensured that whichever party wins the ...
The Soft Boys: A Can Of Bees (Two Crabs)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 May 1979
TAKE THE "mystery" out of rock'n'roll and you're left with an evaluation of current rock'n'roll that relies upon the recognition of traditional principles or objects. ...
James Chance, James White and The Blacks: James White and the Reds
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 23 June 1979
A comparative study (sort of) of aggressive American nihilism and French anarchists with beer cans. IAN PENMAN adjudicates on matters moral and philosophical. ...
Weather Report: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 14 July 1979
Driving with a devil in their tank ...
The Residents: Nibbles! (Virgin)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 21 July 1979
MEET THE Residents!!! ...
Dr. Alimantado: Doctor Alimantado: King's Bread (Ital Sounds)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 September 1979
Doc 'Tado I&I Presume ...
John Fahey: The Passage Of Time In Open G And Other Stories
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 September 1979
A FEW WEEKS ago, in the middle of a full week for me and a nice Saturday for Shepherds Bush, I met John Fahey, who ...
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 September 1979
IT'S EASY TO feel alienated by certain aspects of reggae, not the least of which is the idolatry afforded it by impressionable whites: 'Milky Bar ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 September 1979
The World's First Science Fiction Music FestivalWords: Ian Penman and Andy Gill. Pix: Kevin Cummins ...
Joan Armatrading: Steppin' Out (A&M)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 22 September 1979
THE AUTHOR of the song is individualised out of all proportion in rock culture. The singer/songwriter subject is built up in such a way that ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 29 September 1979
THE LAST time I talked about the Slits was centred around a disorientating weekend in Liverpool at the beginning of this year — a shaky ...
Sister Sledge: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 13 October 1979
Shrink-wrapped cabaret ...
Pink Floyd: The Wall (Harvest)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 December 1979
FOREMEN OF the apocalypse Pink Floyd are still alive, four lost men in a popular music eclipse. ...
James Chance & the Contortions: The Contortions: Buy The Contortions (Ze Records)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980
LIGHTBULBS FLASH dutifully o'er our heads, signifying but an insufficient brightness. We go sleepily about our business. Flashbulbs slash daily at our eyes, fulfilling narcissism. ...
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980
JUST ABOVE my typewriter on the mantlepiece is an eye-catching tube of 10 orange flavoured effervescent tablets. Each tablet contains 1g orange flavoured concentrated Vitamin ...
The Flying Lizards: The Flying Lizards (Virgin)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 2 February 1980
CHEWING ON a typically hilarious John Cage memoir, digesting the Formalist perfection, the Formalist splendour, I realise that absolutely nothing is demonstrated beyond the demonstration ...
Elvis Costello: Eivis Costello and the Attractions: Pavilion, West Runton
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 March 1980
Fly me I'm Elvis! ...
The Pop Group, The Slits: The Slits, The Pop Group: Roll On, Sartre's Marbles!!
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 March 1980
THE SLITS: 'In The Beginning There Was Rhythm'/THE POP GROUP: 'Where There's A Will There's A Way' (Rough Trade) ...
The Police: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 14 June 1980
Rock Law... ...
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 ...
Pere Ubu: The Art of Walking (Rough Trade)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 30 August 1980
1. PERE UBU IS haywire, rudimentary, and patiently documentary. It operates on a yield of snared and shared rhythms, on symptoms that have been stitched ...
Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 27 September 1980
LIKE, A Rolling Stone picnic or something more in touch with these headachey contemporary days? ...
A Certain Ratio, New Order: Hurrah, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 11 October 1980
Factory whistle blows in New York ...
The Skids: Schizophrenia On Skid Row
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 November 1980
"I've no desire to push myself into being a media figure. I'm quite happy with my cameras and my wife and my guitars."– Stuart Adamson ...
Robert Palmer: The Deb's Delight Takes FRIGHT!
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 November 1980
THREE TIMES I got out of my warm bath to answer the telephone. The first call was a few seconds of silence and down. The ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 15 November 1980
"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, ...
Grace Jones: The State Of Grace
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 13 December 1980
GRACE JONES. Grace Jones is a nice lady who loves Japanese food. But how does the name Grace Jones figure in your code book? ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Africa 70: Hippodrome, Paris
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 28 March 1981
FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI is probably the unlikeliest of candidates to win the dubious honour of being the Great African Dance's Bob Marley – popularizer to ...
Tom Waits: The Beat Buff Speed Poet Home Booze Hayseed
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 28 March 1981
Or: the ten-piece Tom Waits jigsaw puzzle. As manufactured by Ian Penman ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 6 June 1981
Make my funk the D-funkt ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 13 June 1981
HISTORY SHOWS us the horrible roster of agonising tortures which the human mind has devised in pursuit of the ultimate cautionary pain: bodies roasted over braziers, heads ...
James Chance: Save The Last Chance For Me!
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 20 June 1981
Sax and drugs and contorted soul – Ian Penman meets his hero in another instalment of conversations with James Chance. London 1981. ...
Grace Jones: The Savoy, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 22 August 1981
THE FANFARE hardly pronounced itself...when out folds a larger-than-our-life toy monkey with a grass skirt on its bandy thighs and a big tin drum, swinging ...
ABC: A-Z Club, Bayswater, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 24 October 1981
THE LEXICON OF LOVE ...
Prince: Controversy (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 14 November 1981
SOME DAY MY PRINCE WILL COME... ...
Essay by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 19 December 1981
Overdressed twits taking Polaroids of one another in posey little clubs? Or the stern soapbox caterwauling of commentators who got themselves into a blue funk about everyone else's ...
David Sylvian, Japan: David Sylvian: Melancholy Baby
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 2 January 1982
MELANCHOLY PROPS up his head and whispers, half to himself and half to me... ...
David Bowie: Brechtfast In Bed
Report by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982
IN BAAL, DAVID Bowie finally shed his skin and played the part of someone else. ...
Blue Rondo A La Turk: Southgate Royalty, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 27 March 1982
1/ WHAT IS not news is that I had a hell of a time. ...
Vic Godard, The Subway Sect: Vic Godard & the Subway Sect: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 May 1982
...
Essay by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 31 July 1982
IS EVERYTHING AS wonderful as it seems in the current reiteration of the Song? ...
Arthur Baker, Rockers Revenge: Rockers Revenge: The Big Bang Theory
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 18 September 1982
Or... how a crate of records fell onto producer Arthur Baker's head and created a new jazz music and the beginning of Rockers Revenge ...
Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones (Island)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 24 September 1983
NOW, BEFORE I step before you again to review some music, and then have to face an old familiar tune (videlicet: guilty of obscurantism), I ...
John Martyn: Philentropy (Body Swerve)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 3 December 1983
THERE ARE those – and they are many in today's athletic Popular-hypertrophic music field – who can impress a vocal line upon a certain heavily ...
Carmel: The Drum Is Everything (London)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 24 March 1984
CARMEL KNOWLEDGE ...
Elvis Costello: 10 Bloody Marys And 10 How's Your Fathers
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 21 April 1984
10 AND 10 is 20 postaged stamps of the left-out-of-mainstream Costello: mislaid or temporarily missing 'B'-side moves, free 45s that got lost on the Press, ...
Was (Not Was): Was Not Was: That Was The Freak That Was
Interview by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 19 May 1984
O Dialectic, says the philosopher, when he notices that perhaps the true philosophy laughs at philosophy. ...
Apollonia, Morris Day, Prince: Purple Rain; starring: Prince, Morris Day, Apollonia (Warner Bros.)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 1 September 1984
So just whose tongue is in whose cheek! ...
Essay by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 8 September 1984
IAN PENMAN goes over the top, typewriter at the ready, and asks, Can one speak of the state of pop without protecting the interests of ...
Donna Summer: Cats Without Claws (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984
LOOKING DARKLY into her TV's eyes and chastizing it as media plasma, Donna sings of its ruptured picture: "From the next apartment we hear music/Bleeding ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The Magazine (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, October 1984
For song, as sung by you, is ... notWooing of something finally attained.Far other is the breath of real singing.An aimless breath. A stirring in ...
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 27 October 1984
WHAT, WITHOUT wandering, is here? A company move, accompanying live movie (directed by Jonathan Demme), a record – another live LP, so soon? Where's the ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George and the War On Pop
Essay by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, December 1984
2003 note: I don’t know about this: "this" being the original 2,000 words I handed in at the very last minute to a poor, frazzled ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 22 December 1984
WHEN, EXACTLY, did this creature stop aspiring to be like Bo Diddley, and want to turn into Barbara Streisand? ...
John Martyn: Couldn't Love You More (Permanent CD9)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, April 1993
JOHN MARTYN has roamed his own byways, apparently lost in a mythic search whose obstacles were all his own devising — only he knew the ...
Robert Wyatt: Mid-Eighties (Rough Trade R2952 CD)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, April 1993
AT TIMES during the last ten years you might have wondered why Robert Wyatt didn't simply junk music and park outside supermarkets; his solemn Spartist ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Traffic From Paradise (Geffen GED24602 CD/MC/LP)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, November 1993
RICKIE LEE Jones continues on her own singular way, making records which will not reap her the Four Non Blondes audience, will not return her ...
Michael Jackson: Imitation Of Life
Essay by Ian Penman, The Modern Review, Summer 1993
Michael the archangel listen/Michael don't you see?/If you are on the side of good/Now where does that leave me?Paddy McAloon, 'Michael'When I was 17 I ...
Tim Buckley: T.B. Sheets: In Praise of Tim Buckley
Retrospective by Ian Penman, The Wire, April 1994
TIM BUCKLEY was small - "this little man," as he said in one of his slow sly seducer's songs - he was small, and white, ...
John Cale: Music for the Last Day
Interview by Ian Penman, The Wire, July 1994
JOHN CALE IS rock's international traveller, his work a trans-continental drift of moons and maps, seas and seachange, envoys and ennui. From his early (unfashionable) ...
Tricky: [the Phantoms of] TRICKNOLOGY [versus a Politics of Authenticity]
Essay by Ian Penman, The Wire, March 1995
"Machine technology is a type of transformation." Martin Heidegger ...
Frank Zappa: From Z to A and Back Again, or: QUANTITIES AND LEER
Comment by Ian Penman, The Wire, July 1995
I CANNOT FOR the pop life of me see why anyone over the age of 17 would ever want to listen to Frank Zappa again, ...
Lou Reed: Walk on the Mild Side
Interview by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 16 February 1996
Lou Reed was the ultimate rock'n'roller who mimed shooting up on stage. Now he's clean and sober, but what kind of shape is his music ...
Drugs In Rock Culture: Don’t Try This At Home
Essay by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 2 August 1996
TAKING DRUGS CHANGES things. It changes your blood stream and brain waves and bank balance; your heart rate and slang of choice and the circumference ...
Overview by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 27 November 1996
David Jones... Major Tom... Ziggy... will the real David Bowie ever stand up? And can the quick-change act disguise the fact that it's been 20 ...
Barry Adamson: Oedipus Schmoedipus (Mute CD STUMM 134 CD)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, August 1998
WITHOUT JOHN Barry, 007 would be an unfeasibly smug playboy prick without an iota of cool; without Bernard Herrmann, Travis Bickle would have been less ...
Interview by Ian Penman, The Wire, July 1999
Since unburdening himself of Swans' legacy of extreme body music, Michael Gira has aspired to a state of grace with his new group, Angels Of ...
Alessandro Raina: Colonia Paradi'es
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, January 2000
THIS SCRATCHY PLAINT from pastoral Italy makes other Big Releases sound fatally self-absorbed, and too much in thrall to reigning paradigms; its topography of smaller ...
Interview by Ian Penman, The Wire, March 2000
23 years after their art attack first outpaced punk audiences, Wire have sprung back into action. Ian Penman meets the group in rehearsal and finds ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, The Wire, April 2000
Now living by the sea, Coil tap the tidal flows and lunar tugs shaping England's occult history for their visionary nocturnal music. ...
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 ...
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, May 2000
ON THE FACE of it, Stefan Betke is producing a very samey, so-what? music; compared to some modern millenarians, the bunker dub he releases under ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2000
THIS BOOK — a book I was avid to read, whose subject I revere; whose life is a gift to any halfway capable biographer — ...
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 — ...
Lee Hazlewood: 13/The Cowboy And The Lady (Smells Like)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2000
LEE HAZLEWOOD is not one of those cult objects who, on closer inspection, looks like a frail talent protected by decades of vinyl scarcity and ...
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2000
ANYONE DISILLUSIONED with rap should cock an ear to the sounds leaking out from under the bunker doors of Brooklyn's Wordsound collective. The Crooklyn crew ...
Jimi Tenor: Out Of Nowhere (Warp)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, September 2000
SOMETIMES YOU just need a Song: one that makes you feel electric angels are sitting on your shoulder and whispering arcane formulae of timeless Passion ...
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, September 2000
IS THERE any point in anyone trying to recast the lassitudinous spacesail of Tim Buckley? As a singer, Buckley belongs to the Eternal(s), so aren't ...
Retrospective by Ian Penman, The Wire, October 2000
Ian Penman celebrates the late Jack Nitzsche, the rogue composer whose soundtrack legacy reads like a rollcall of the Hollywood damned. ...
David Sylvian, Japan: David Sylvian: Everything And Nothing
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, November 2000
COLLECTED OUEVRE of Japan's finest ...
Fatboy Slim: Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Can't Cook, Won't Cook: Macy Gray guest slot aside, disappointing follow-up to You've Come A Long Way, Baby ...
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Mixed bag of tricks from latest Electronica whiz ...
PJ Harvey: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Self-produced sixth album is curate's egg ...
John Lennon, Yoko Ono: John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono Band/Double Fantasy
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, February 2001
The dream is over… ...
Rickie Lee Jones at the Jazz Cafe
Live Review by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 10 February 2001
RICKIE LEE JONES is something of an anomaly. Her latest album, It's Like This, has just been nominated for a Grammy – but how many ...
Shane MacGowan and Simon Napier-Bell: The Sound And The Fury
Book Review by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 14 April 2001
Black Vinyl, White Powder, Simon Napier-Bell (390pp, Ebury Press £16.99)A Drink With Shane MacGowan, Victoria Mary Clarke and Shane MacGowan (360pp, Sidgwick & Jackson £15.99) ...
Various Artists: Back To Black (Universal)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, May 2001
Ten-CD, 220-track History Of Black Music behemoth put together by Morgan 'Streetsounds' Khan in tandem with 35-strong industry committee ...
Missy Elliott: Miss E... So Addictive (The Gold Mind Inc/Elektra 7559626392)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2001
Ian Penman gets out of his head on Miss E ...
Radiohead: Amnesiac (Parlophone CDFHEIT45101 CD/MC/2XLP)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2001
Radiohead's Amnesiac pursues the detours into electronica essayed on last year's Kid A, but Ian Penman's world remains unrocked ...
Tim Buckley: The Dream Belongs To Me (Manifesto)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, July 2001
NO COMPILATION HAS ever been adequate to the task of representing Tim Buckley in his full groove, strangeness and charm; this is a man responsible ...
Emmylou Harris: Anthology (Warner Archives/Rhino)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
ALTHOUGH RARELY FORWARDED as a "woman in music" icon, it’s hard to think of a more exemplary career - male or female, consistent and daring ...
Mercury Rev: All Is Dream (V2)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
THIS IS AN AFTER record in all senses: after loving the highs and lows and then learning to disavow that love, after going through the ...
The Doors: Bright Midnight/Live In America (Elektra)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
ONE BRIGHT MIDNIGHT: 2 songs from 1969 & 14 songs from 1970, a moment of magickal cusp, a genuine celebration, a true revelation, a breathtaking ...
Bob Dylan: Love And Theft (Columbia)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, October 2001
ON 1997’s Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan sounded like a man coming to accounts with himself, with the fact that anything from this point ...
Spiritualized: Let It Come Down (Spaceman)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, October 2001
"I WON’T GET TO Heaven the state I'm in," weeps Jason Pierce, but it sounds more like "I won't get as far as the Corn ...
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2001
WHO DARES, whispers and doesn't boast. Listen to Leonard Cohen's The Future (1992) now and hear how certain awful futures are inscribed with Psalmic grace ...
Vincent Gallo: Recordings Of Music For Films (Warp)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, May 2002
NOTE THAT STRICTLY utile title. Here we find not vanity project Muzak for 'imaginary' films, projected by some vain musclehead Hollyweird jerk-off with more friends ...
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 ...
Nina Simone: Always Searching for a Key
Obituary by Ian Penman, The Wire, June 2003
The realisation that she was black in a country run by whites, a woman in a world run by men, turned Nina Simone into the ...
Chet Baker, Jan Erik Vold: Jan Erik Vold & Chet Baker: Telemark Blue (Hot Club)
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, March 2011
SO MANY paradoxes with Chet: a man who became a visual icon, but couldn't care less about his appearance; a man whose music was all ...
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 ...
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 ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 23 January 2014
"There was a lot of racial tension around bebop. Black men were going with fine, rich white bitches. They were all over these niggers out ...
Kate Bush: Sonic Foam: Kate Bush
Essay by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 17 April 2014
A DREAM, just before waking. It's a day or two after Kate Bush's unexpected announcement of her return to the concert stage for a series ...
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 ...
D'Angelo and the Vanguard: Black Messiah
Review by Ian Penman, The Wire, February 2015
Soul revivalist D'Angelo channels voices of funk music's past but ends up lost in limbo. ...
Frank Sinatra: Swoonatra: Sinatra – London
Essay by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 2 July 2015
REVEILLE WITH BEVERLY is a now largely forgotten 1943 film starring Ann Miller and the great Franklin Pangborn. Worked up from an equally forgotten US ...
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 ...
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 ...
The Band, Levon Helm: Elusive Harmony: Levon Helm, The Band, and the birth of Americana
Retrospective by Ian Penman, City Journal, Winter 2021
IN MAY 1900, an advert appeared out of Florida for "60 coloured performers… male, female and juvenile of every description, Novelty Acts, Headliners, etc. We ...
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