Mat Snow
Editor of MOJO from 1995-1999, Snow (pictured with dodgy prog rocker Peter Gabriel) was a regular contributor to NME in the ’80s and a feature writer for SOUNDS, Q and many other publications. Subsequently he became editor of soccer monthly FOUR FOUR TWO and has served as editorial consultant on Rock's Backpages.
373 articles
List of articles in the library
The Go-Betweens: The Gentle Three-Headed Monster
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 21 August 1982
Treading carefully among the Go-Betweens – these Aussies bite! ...
The Birthday Party, The Virgin Prunes: The Birthday Party/The Virgin Prunes: Ace Cinema, Brixton
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 December 1982
WITH CHANNEL 4's cameras peering over their shoulders, both sets of Wild Men of Pop felt a little inhibited. Mindful of television's cold, reducing stare, ...
Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band: The Distance (Capitol)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 January 1983
THE RECENT US chart successes of Springsteen, Geils and relative newcomer John Cougar demonstrates that American worship of the great god Raaack 'n' Rawl continues ...
Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget: Ace Cinema, Brixton
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 January 1983
SOME OF the many moods of Mute were on show tonight. Label mates Depeche Mode and Fad Gadget would appear to be polar opposites, but ...
The Passions, Stiff Little Fingers: Stiff Little Fingers, The Passions: Ace Cinema, Brixton, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 January 1983
GUNG-HO-HUM ...
Laughing Clowns: Laughing Clowns (Red Flame)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983
"YOU SHAKE your head, you can't believe..." ...
Frank Zappa: Zap It To ‘Em, Frank!
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 January 1983
Frank Zappa/London Symphony Orchestra: Barbican Centre, London ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 29 January 1983
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Lyceum, London ...
The Minutemen: Minutemen: What Makes A Man Start Fires? (SST)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 26 February 1983
GETTING BETTER BY THE MINUTE ...
Laurie Anderson: The Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 5 March 1983
IF YOU expected an overview of American civilization from the vantage point of a New York City loft, you would have got both more and ...
The Go-Betweens, Orange Juice: Orange Juice/The Go Betweens: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 9 April 1983
THERE COMES a time in every upwardly mobile popster's career when he/she is faced with the almost inevitable prospect of playing the Lyceum. The ...
14 Karat Soul: Fridge, Brixton, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 16 April 1983
SUBLIMENESS ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 30 April 1983
ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES In The Dark are a triumph of packaging over content. The same principle that determines the lavishly striking sleeves by Peter Saville extends ...
Nico/1919: Brixton Ace, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 June 1983
ALL'S BEEN quiet on the Killing Joke front for quite a while now, and it was only a matter of time before someone else got ...
Killing Joke: Fire Dances (EG)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
AT LAST, the return of the Joke of the Wild Frontier... ...
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
THERE'S ONLY one thing wrong with King Sunny Ade And His African Beats: they make nearly everything else sound drab and mean-spirited. But that malaise ...
The Members: Going West (Albion)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
ONCE UPON a time I thought The Members fell between the stools of The Clash and The Boomtown Rats. Little has changed, except you ...
Sisters of Mercy: Sisters Under The Scales: The Reptile House EP
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 16 July 1983
DEEP IN the woods a funeral is swinging ... ...
The Armoury Show, Virginia Astley: Armoury Show/Eyeless In Gaza/Virginia Astley: The Venue, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 20 August 1983
RICHARD JOBSON had expected a handful to turn up tonight and thus was pleasantly surprised by a near – capacity crowd who were so indulgent, ...
Carmel: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 20 August 1983
CARMEL IDOLISES Edith Piaf, and Serge Clerc's sleeve for 'Bad Day' depicts her as a transatlantic chanteuse crooning those midnight blue notes for Rive Gauche ...
Killing Joke: He Man and All That Jaz: Killing Joke
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 20 August 1983
AND JUST when you thought the laughter had died down, Killing Joke are back. 1983 sees a new LP, Fire Dances – not only their ...
Depeche Mode: Construction Time Again (Mute)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 27 August 1983
"LOTS OF surprises in store/This isn’t a party/It’s a whole lot more," sings Dave Gahan in ‘More Than A Party’. It’s a song from Construction ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 3 September 1983
"I'D JUST love somebody to do an interview or review that had naff all to do with politics..." ...
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 10 September 1983
THESE DAYS the barricades are thinly manned. Back in '79 Rock was Against Everything and The Gang Of 4 provided a soundtrack of surgical firepower ...
The Gymslips: Smelly Socks And Belches
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 24 September 1983
GIRLS! FEEL FEEBLE? LISTLESS? FIGHT ANOREXIA THE RENEES' WAY! THE GYMSLIPS explain the benefits of pie 'n' mash to MAT SNOW. ...
Graham Parker: Tired and Feathered: Graham Parker - The Real Macaw
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 24 September 1983
IT WOULD BE very tempting to take a withering look at this LP’s horribly punning title and matching sleeve, and crack an equally feeble witticism ...
Husker Du, Omega Tribe: Omega Tribe: No Love Lost (Corpus Cristi)/Hüsker Dü: Metal Circus (SST)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 17 December 1983
"People talk about anarchy / and taking up a fight / Well I'm afraid of hings like that / I lock my doors at night" ...
The Flamin' Groovies, The Ramones: The Flamin' Groovies and The Ramones: London Roundhouse
Retrospective by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1984
AS SPRING turned into the long, hot summer of '76, the '60s in the bloated shape of the Rolling Stones self-parodied itself up its own ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT... ...
Quiet Riot: Cum On Feel The Boize
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 21 January 1984
"CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE!! GURLS RAAACK YOUR BOIZE!! WE'LL GET WILD WILD WILD!!!" ...
Orange Juice: Bridge on the River Clyde
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 11 February 1984
Sour grapes over The Smiths? Sound of Young Scotland four years late? Juicy new tunes squeezed? EDWYN COLLINS unzips his lip! Purple prose: MAT SNOW. ...
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 18 February 1984
GROWING UP in public (a further instalment). ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 10 March 1984
"WHAT THE HELL else have I got but that spell?" roars John Cale onstage in a performance of ‘Leaving It Up To You’. ...
R.E.M.: American Paradise Regained: R.E.M.’s Reckoning
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 21 April 1984
WHEN I HEAR word ‘plangent’ I reach for my applause button. Which is why Reckoning and its predecessor, last year’s Murmur, confirm R.E.M. as ...
Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II (SST)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 5 May 1984
WHAT I know abot ol' time country music could be written on the back of a gnat's fart, but I ain't so pixillated (yes you ...
Nick Cave: From Her To Eternity (Mute)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 19 May 1984
NICK CAVE'S From Her To Eternity is one of the greatest rock albums ever made. Now read on... ...
The Cure: Top Cat He's Intellectual
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 26 May 1984
CATERPILLAR, lovecat, fatcat, catamite, catatonia – it was a mean word-association game I played on the way to meet Robert Smith of The Cure. ...
Black Flag: Wheel Me Out Flagging!: Black Flag: Marquee, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 26 May 1984
"SEARCH AND DESTROY" is the tattoo emblazoned across the sweat-rivuleted, hawser-taut shoulders of Henry Rollins. ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Echo and the Bunnymen: Warren Peace
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
NOTHING IS REAL ...
Elvis Costello: Goodbye Cruel World (F-Beat)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 August 1984
"WHY MUST I be so lonely...?" ...
23 Skidoo, Shriekback: 23 Skidoo: Urban Gamelan; Shriekback: Jam Science
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 11 August 1984
I DON'T KNOW whether it was the film of African boys being circumcised or the self-important and gimmicky drone that accompanied it, but back in ...
Billy Idol: Whatever Happened To Bloated Rock Stars
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 11 August 1984
THERE WAS a time when the idea of Billy Idol one day becoming a megaplatinum punk-rock superstar would have made me choke on my nutburger. ...
Violent Femmes: Hallowed Ground (Slash/London)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 18 August 1984
MILWAUKEE IS Dullsville by any other name, so little wonder that the three superbuskers who comprise The Violent Femmes munch upon the tastiest feast Americana ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 25 August 1984
JUST OCCASIONALLY Robert Wyatt gets elbowed off my turntable in favour of something a little more...lycanthropic. Something to transport me away from the pristine confines ...
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 25 August 1984
I WAS A TEENAGE GRISTLEBURGER! Trampled underfoot: BARNEY HOSKYNS and MAT SNOW. ...
The Blow Monkeys: Wag Club, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984
69 RED BABOONS ...
Heaven 17: How Men Are (Virgin)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 29 September 1984
YOU KNOW the pokerwork proverb in every chippy/cab firm/newsagent in the country: "You don't have to be mad to work here…but it helps!" ...
The Go-Betweens: Money Can't Buy You Love
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 October 1984
THERE'S NOTHING quite like a love affair to shake you out of an autopilot trance and put you back in touch with your feelings; feelings ...
Art Of Noise: (Who's Afraid Of?) The Art Of Noise! (ZTT)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
FIRST: A disclaimer. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone at NME wished ZTT well. I regarded ABC as one of the more horrible aspects of ...
The Fall: Before and after the Fall
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 3 November 1984
"I THINK the difference is in the mechanical sounds of our time. Like the sound of the airplane in the '40s was a rmoooooaaaahhhhhhhh sound ...
The Ramones: Too Tough To Die (Sire, import)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 10 November 1984
AS THE legendary Nick Kent once remarked of the Stones, The Ramones don't do, they simply are, monsieur, even if they can't get a UK ...
Bobby Womack: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1985
HE CAME to paaaarteee, and he came to prove it all night. ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1985
AS SPRING turned into the long, hot summer of '76, the '60s in the bloated shape of The Rolling Stones self-parodied itself up its own ...
The Triffids: Roses, Knives, Dead Bodies
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 5 January 1985
MAT SNOW hails the twisted poetry of THE TRIFFIDS while the rest of us wonder — do all the great new bands come from Australia, ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1985
Joey and Dee Dee talk about life for da brudders is the mid-'80s; Hardcore; chart success (or not); drugs; playing fast; New York City, and where they come from musically.
File format: mp3; file size: 45.3mb, interview length: 1h 02' 53" sound quality: ***
The Ramones: Ain’t No Stoppin’ The Cretins From Boppin’!
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 16 February 1985
ONE! Joey...TWO! Dee Dee... FREE! Mat... FOUR! Barney... THE RAMONES revisited in a teenage tag-match ‘tween two of the scuzziest pairs of sneakers in the ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: VU
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 16 February 1985
"IF YOU PLAY the albums chronologically they cover the growth of us as people from her to there, and in there is a tale for ...
Jason & The Scorchers: Lost And Found (EMI America)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 23 February 1985
We're sorry, but the headline has to be...PHEW! WHAT A SCORCHER! ...
Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 April 1985
"HALLO HAHMMERSMITH...we are U2!" Holly say. Some say, ha ha, very funny; I say, many a true word spoken in jest. ...
Modern Romance: Burn it! (RCA)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 May 1985
WASN'T THERE once some bloke in Modern Romance who said "I'm mean/I'm clean/I'm Geoffrey Deane"? Absolutely great stuff, and so it's with great regret that ...
Elvis Costello: A Man Called Uncle: Elvis Costello
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 18 May 1985
What is the Elvis Seal Of Approval worth? Mat Snow asks for a few words of wisdom from pop’s Uncle Brian. ...
Robyn Hitchcock, Rain Parade: The Rain Parade, Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians: Clarendon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1 June 1985
SOAK IT UP! ...
Robert Plant: Percy Pulls It Off !
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 June 1985
Yes, the one-time wild man of rock Robert ‘Percy’ Plant in "interesting solo album" shock! And now he tells it like it is, jumps to ...
Womack and Womack: Womack & Womack: Radio M.U.S.C. Man (Elektra)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 15 June 1985
YOU'LL BE hearing a lot of this on the wireless in the coming weeks if the Womack scam pays off. Radio M.U.S.C. Man "salutes all ...
Adam & The Ants: Adam Ant: Metamorphosis of a Narc
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 13 July 1985
"I DON'T THINK I'm an intelligent person. But I think I have a common sense that allows me to have an instinct about what people ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 7 September 1985
Always the bridesmaid, blushing MAT SNOW skips down the aisle to the positive noise of THE JUNE BRIDES. Will this bunch of boy scouts save ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 14 September 1985
I WAS going to sign this piece off, "Once more Hüsker Dü prove themselves to be the most primally exciting group on the surface of ...
Suzanne Vega: Vaguely Seeking Suzanne
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 5 October 1985
I'D NEVER BEEN to a coffee-shop in New York's Greenwich Village before, but the Paradise was just as I'd imagined such a place to be ...
Stevo: The Man Whose Head Exploded
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 26 October 1985
If you can't please yourself, you can't please your soul cries STEVO, head of happy family Some Bizzare. MAT SNOW, our man in black with ...
Brilliant: The Day The World Turned Day-Glo
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 2 November 1985
Former fuzzy funk mess BRILLIANT have slimmed down to rake in the acclaim. MAT SNOW dips his ears in their direction and finds himself occasionally ...
Robert Wyatt: Old Rottenhat (Rough Trade)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 30 November 1985
CAN POLITICS and music mix? Are songs about matters commonly deemed to belong in the political sphere not really songs at all, but rather singing ...
The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards (1985)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Winter 1985
Starting with the Live Aid Dylan "fiasco", this interview moves swiftly through subjects such as guitar playing and Jeff Beck's Stones "audition", before degenerating into a row about production methods. Things get back on keel with talk of Exile and Keef's Desert Island Discs. Sound quality is, shall we say, funky.
File format: mp3; file size: 69.5mb, interview length: 1h 12' 23" sound quality: **
Patti Smith: The Patti Smith Group's Lenny Kaye (1986)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1986
Musician and journalist Kaye on the CBGBs scene, the differences between US and UK Punk, Patti Smith and his seminal Nuggets compilation.
File format: mp3; file size: 59meg, interview length: 1h 01' 26" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 January 1986
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, Los Angeles, may well be the freakiest street in the Western World. ...
The Replacements: Hits From The Sticks
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 11 January 1986
"THEY TRY to teach you everything they think you should know and none of the things you want to know. There wasn't a class on ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1986
Pogues Shane McGowan and Jem Finer talk about traditional Irish music, the band, songwriting, touring, and Shane's fantastic laugh.
File format: mp3; file size: 60mb, interview length: 1h 05' 34" sound quality: **
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 February 1986
TONIGHT WILL be one of Wet Wet Wet's last gigs before they step from cultdom's pastel spotlight into the full glare of major-league pop-stardom. Only ...
Patti Smith, Television: Punk in New York: Blitzkreig Bop
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 15 February 1986
"And one fine morning she turns on a New York-station / And doesn't believe what she hears at all / She started dancing to that ...
Charlie Sexton: Pictures For Pleasure
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986
WHAT THE world needs now, as I'm sure you'll all agree, is a whippy 17-year-old Texan rock'n'roller with leather-sheathed buttocks waggling provocatively like two pigeon ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards: An English Werewolf in London
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986
WHAT BECOMES a legend most? So exactly how I'd imagined it was the scene that I wouldn't have dared make it up. Before we enter, ...
The Bangles: Manic Impressives
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 8 March 1986
"VICKI ALWAYS tells me that I always used to sit in, the back of the car, a big Buick station wagon, when I was three ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 15 March 1986
"I'D LIKE TO put a disclaimer in at this point: Mat Snow is using very long word and drawing us into an academic discussion of ...
Prince: Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 22 March 1986
GET A load of this guy. Five-foot-two in high heels, his tight black toreador pants stretch up to a fraction above his crack, hence a ...
The Pogues: The Sweet Smell Of Success
Report by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 28 March 1986
TODAY THE WORLD, TOMORROW THE WORLD ...
Culture Club: From Luxury to Heartache
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 5 April 1986
TODAY'S SHY, retiring George is to be found downgraded to the top-left quarter of a scrupulously democratic sleeve photograph. Nobody smiles. We are no longer ...
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 12 April 1986
A PRE-RAPHAELITE beauty sweeps through trailing fronds and hothouse blooms... ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground Boxed Set (Polydor)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 3 May 1986
WHEN POP-JOURNALISTS say "classic", we mean a record that we’ll still be playing in ten years. Marketing sharpies, however, have a far surer handle on ...
The Triffids: Born Sandy Devotional
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 21 June 1986
THE MID-'80s motto is that irony has gone mainstream. Self-confidence and hope for the future have evaporated in glittering, actressy despair, to be replaced by ...
Blood On The Saddle: Hoedown At The O.K. Corral
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 28 June 1986
GLENN MILLER was the first, I guess, and then there was Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Eight years later Otis Redding ...
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 28 June 1986
"ALTHOUGH I AM honest, I will deal with an interview with the confidence of GEORGE MICHAEL, POP STAR. And the way I deal with people ...
The Jesus & Mary Chain: The Jesus and Mary Chain: Paint It Black
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 5 July 1986
"IT IS A bit of rock'n'roll cliche. I like it, but you are open to a slagging." ...
Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction: This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Hilarious
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 26 July 1986
Hot rats!! Twin overhead foxtailed speed machine and paranoiac ZODIAC MINDWARP wraps his twisted thoughtgear round the silver-tongued questioning of our psychedelic snake snake MAT ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1986
The Talking Heads frontman on his film True Stories: about the meaning of Texas; conspiracy theories; yuppies and generational attitudes; the band's uneasiness with the film and soundtrack album; New York v the rest of the USA, and the meaning of cities.
File format: mp3; file size: 64.5mb, interview length: 1h 07' 11" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1986
The interview was meant to be about The Bad Seeds' Kicking Against The Pricks, but swiftly degenerates into an attack on music journalism in general, and interviewer Mat Snow in particular
File format: mp3; file size: 43.9meg, interview length: 45' 44" sound quality: ***
Nick Cave: Prick Me Do I Not Bleed?
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 23 August 1986
AMONG NICK Cave's most prized possessions is a hardcover green book stuffed with press cuttings and private observations written in his painstakingly spidery hand. ...
David Byrne, Talking Heads: David Byrne: A Talking Head's Guide To The Big Country
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 6 September 1986
COMING SOON to a cinema near you is one of this year's funniest yet most thought-provoking films. It is called True Stories, and is a ...
Overview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 27 September 1986
AFTER TWO false starts due to bad weather, the wide-eyed and jittery paratroopers swallowed their third load of benzedrines in three nights and flew off ...
Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders: AUDIO: The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde (1986)
Audio transcript of interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1986
This is a transcript of Mat's interview with Chrissie. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders: The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde (1986)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1986
The Pretenders' frontwoman opines on everything from animal rights to capital punishment. She also talks about music once or twice.
File format: mp3; file size: 84.7mb, interview length: 1h 32' 30" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1986
The girls and boys on commune upbringings, parental marriages, women in rock, male v female sensibilities, Newport and Boston, having children and much more.
File format: mp3; file size: 50.9mb, interview length: 55' 35" sound quality: **½
The Pretenders: Chrissie Hynde: We Are All Prostitutes
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1 November 1986
"I CAN SIT down with someone who is shooting up heroin; I can talk to a woman who is about to have an abortion because ...
Lone Justice: Maria McKee: Sweet Heart Of The Radio
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1 November 1986
So, what's it to be then? Is MARIA McKEE of LONE JUSTICE last year's pretty thing or next year's Queen of the airwaves? MAT SNOW ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1 November 1986
IN THE FOOTSTEPS of such music-hall and variety greats as Tommy Trinder, Ted Ray and Jimmy Tarbuck, tonight The Smiths tread these venerable boards to ...
Trouble Funk: Say What! Live In London
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1 November 1986
JUST THE other night I achieved a tiny slice of immortality when radio-jock Andy Kershaw played a 1960s Texan garage nugget of which he knows ...
Throwing Muses: Grannie Takes A Trip
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 29 November 1986
MAT SNOW is much taken with THROWING MUSES a faith-healing four from Massachussets. ...
Husker Du: Warehouse: Songs And Stories (Warner Bros)
Review by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 1987
THERE ARE several reasons why I’d like to backtrack a decade to my teenage years, but right now I can think of none better than ...
Imagination's Leee John (1987)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
The triple-e'd front man talks about UK v US producers; his band's theatricality and image; his hatred of Apartheid; hanging out with royalty, and finds time to peddle a selection of AIDS myths.
File format: mp3; file size: 54.2mb, interview length: 59' 13" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Clean, sober and philosophical: Marianne, on the up with the Strange Weather album, talks about acting, poetry, the art of interpretation, and addiction and recovery.
File format: mp3; file size: 7.5meg, interview length: 1h 13' 24" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Roy Orbson on the Travelling Wilburys, the ups-and-downs of his career, the old Sun Records gang, and a whole lot more...
File format: mp3 File size: 60.1mb; interview length: 1h 02' 35" Sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Drop The Bomb! The First Citizens of the Chocolate City talk about everything Go Go: the audiences, the live thing, getting energy from the people and the Washington DC scene.
File format: mp3; file size: 42.9mb, interview length: 44' 39" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Don and David talk about American culture, the Kennedy conspiracies, musical juxtapositions and growing up on Detroit rock 'n' roll.
File format: mp3; file size: 86.6mb, interview length: 1h 30' 12" sound quality: ***
Schoolly D: Schoolly-D: Slap Happy
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 30 May 1987
Reformed gangster and self-made record tycoon, SCHOOLLY-D is in town to promote his new album Saturday Night. MAT SNOW admires his jewellery ...
The Replacements/Rose Of Avalanche: Town And Country Club, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 27 June 1987
AS THE strains of Zep's 'Kashmir' fade into the gloom, I am confronted by an appalling sight. It is Rose Of Avalanche and, in particular, ...
Hüsker Dü: Town And Country Club, Kentish Town, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 4 July 1987
EVER A man of the people, singer-guitarist Bob Mould was observed wandering through a jam-packed crowd, pint in hand and looking a good two stone ...
Luther Vandross: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 11 July 1987
YOU CAN'T fake this kind of excitement. There can be no more exquisite thrill in live entertainment than a summery, scantily-clad soul crowd climaxing as ...
Trouble Funk: Free Your Ass And Your Mind Will Follow!
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 18 July 1987
The gospel according to the new Trouble Funk album Trouble Over Here, Trouble Over There is: educate, agitate and organise. MAT SNOW meets the REED ...
Madonna: Houston Astrodome, Texas
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 8 August 1987
So who is that girl! MAT SNOW travels to Texas and discovers a MADONNA who owes little to the soft vulnerability of Marilyn Monroe and ...
The Blow Monkeys, Marianne Faithfull, Elvis Presley, U2: Elvis: The Million Dollar Bonanza
Report by Mat Snow, Sounds, 15 August 1987
On the tenth anniversary of ELVIS PRESLEY's death, MAT SNOW makes a pilgrimage to Graceland and reports on the thriving industry at rock 'n' roll's ...
Tom Waits: Franks Wild Years (Island) *****
Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 22 August 1987
ONE FOR THE ROAD ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty (1987)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, October 1987
The Heartbreakers' main man talks about collaborating with other artists; the band's longevity; muses about songwriting and being a bandleader.
File format: mp3; file size: 40.6mb, interview length: 44' 20" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1987
Art vs. commerce; pop and politics; materialism; the Second World War – the Bard of Barking on all of that and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 59.8mb, interview length: 1h 02' 14" sound quality: ***
Basia: Victoria Palace Theatre, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 7 November 1987
THE REAL performance tonight started two-thirds of the way through Basia's set. When she announced a medley of songs by her favourite singer, Aretha Franklin, ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1987
The Triffids, authors of the greatest Australian country and western album, address the darker undercurrents beneath the sparkling antipodean surf. ...
Dinosaur Jr.: Dinosaur Jr: Clarendon, Hammersmith, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 12 December 1987
THE BAND THAT TIME FORGOT ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1988
Glamourpuss Wendy James and pals discuss their favourite Dylan songs (??), the history of the band, bitch about Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and consider their fellow late-'80s female acts.
File format: mp3; file size: 40.2mb, interview length: 43' 51" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1988
Yoko on her musical upbringing, life during wartime, the avant garde and her involvment with John and the English music scene
File format: mp3 File size: 26.6mb Interview length: 38 minutes 44 seconds Sound quality: *
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1988
Laughing Lennie talks to Mat Snow about songwriting; meditation and religion; the collapse of literary culture; the misperception of him as a Gloom Merchant; music as therapy; ambiguity, songwriting and 'My Way': Sinatra vs Vicious; his relationship with the press; Montreal; the idealism of '68, and the rise of the post-punk Cult of Cohen.
File format: mp3; file size: 81.7mb, interview length: 1h 25' 08" sound quality: ***
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, The Guardian, February 1988
WE LIVE IN THE days of the flood, says Leonard Cohen. "Most of my psychic landmarks have evaporated. I'm reluctant to apply the psychic realm ...
Leonard Cohen: A Mercy Mission With... The Man With A Golden Voice
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 20 February 1988
Once the diarist of doom, LEONARD COHEN has suddenly released a disco-comedy LP, I'm Your Man. MAT SNOW meets the 53-year-old mentor of Ian McCulloch, Matt Johnson, ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 5 April 1988
The Boston indies talk about their working processes and place in the musical scheme of things; discuss their name, and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 28.6mb, interview length: 31' 12" sound quality: ***
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1988
They talk in units of a million. They plan tours like military invasions. They know the rules, Def Leppard: it takes craft, hard graft, spectacle ...
Prefab Sprout: Extracting the Michael
Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 14 May 1988
Though inspired by dreams of Wacko Jacko, PREFAB SPROUT'S mainman PADDY McALOON has little time lor most rock legends — Talking Heads and Bruce Springsteen ...
Run DMC: Tougher Than Leather (London LON 38/CD) ****
Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 28 May 1988
THROWING PUNCHLINES ...
Fairground Attraction: The First Of A Million Kisses (RCA716961P/Cass/CD)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1988
Fairground Attraction: be young, be foolish, be happy! ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, June 1988
The First Gentleman of New Country talks about being on the road, his North Carolina roots, the New Country boom, his youthful indiscretions, and the nature of country music.
File format: mp3; file size: 36mb, interview length: 39' 22" sound quality: ***
Sinéad O'Connor: Tottenham Court Road Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 10 June 1988
NOT SO much a show as a filmed and videoed event, tonight is a celebration of turning 21 and at last getting a grip on ...
Public Enemy: It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (Def Jam) ****1/2
Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 16 July 1988
RICK RUBIN is white, Jewish and, on Public Enemy's second album here under scrutiny, steel-reinforces his reputation as today's greatest producer of rebel rock. ...
Was (Not Was): Brothers of Invention
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 16 July 1988
WAS (NOT WAS) still people their songs freaks, but compassion now nestles satire. MAT SNOW helps The Was Brothers find the heartbeat of their absurd ...
Michael Jackson: Wembley Stadium, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, 23 July 1988
A GIANT STEP FOR EVENT-KIND: Bringing his spectacular live show to the UK, MICHAEL JACKSON proves he can moonwalk and walk on water. MAT SNOW witnesses the Second Coming. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1988
Mr. Pop on his current album, Instinct; on giving up his "bad habits"; on Detroit and the Stooges; his confrontational stageshow; getting his business affairs in order, and on his childhood and parents.
Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1988
The Tull front-man, in Italy to play a TV show, on performing live; the economics of salmon farming on the Skye; his relationship with Chrysalis Records; still being on the road after all these years; not socialising with other musicians; his time in tax exile, and taking part in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.
File format: mp3; file size: 70.4mb, interview length: 1h 13' 21" sound quality: ***
Pet Shop Boys: Outsiderdom: The Pet Shop Boys
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1988
The Pet Shop Boys have played live once, never toured and only grudgingly socialize with the pop fraternity. They've stoutly refused to take the conventional ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1988
Messrs. Tennant & Lowe discuss Thatcherite anti-gay legislation and pop politics; making movies; their fans; pop associates Depeche Mode, Morrissey and George Michael; singles, albums and the music business; being starstruck by Dusty Springfield, and dressing up!
File format: mp3; file size: 83.9mb, interview length: 1h 31' 35" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1988
Live Aid? Bollocks! Mat Snow battles the airport tannoy to hear pearls of wisdom from John Lydon and band.
File format: MP3 File size: 16.1 mb<br> Interview length: 23 minute 47 seconds Sound quality: ***
Iggy Pop: The Madcap Laughs Again
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1988
Iggy Pop "The Prophet Of Punk" — has ricocheted through some combustible times. There were fleeting stabs at bona fide rock celebrity, then prolonged bouts ...
Jethro Tull: Phew! Rocke’n’Rolle!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1988
For 20 long years Jethro Tull have peddled their hoary riffs and uniquely rustic folklore, ever clad in sturdy items from the winter wardrobe. They ...
Public Image Ltd: PiL: Holidays in Estonia
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 17 September 1988
"I LOVE MOANING. That's what I live for!" cackles John Lydon as he surveys a pickled herring with an even fishier eye. "I'm going to ...
Living Colour: Nailing Their Colours To The Mast
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 24 September 1988
Living Colour's world vision may be in glorious technicolour, but they're the first to admit that a black rage sweeps through their music. Mat Snow ...
Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap (Virgin V2554 LP/Cass/CD)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1988
The swaggering return of Sir Keith Richards. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1988
Richard Thompson talks to Mat Snow about growing up in North London, learning guitar and forming Fairport Convention. Along the way he meets Sandy Denny and Joe Boyd...
File format: mp3 File size: 85.7mb, interview length: 1h 29' 15", sound quality: ***
Richard Thompson: The Minstrel’s Tale
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1988
He is, by all accounts, a brilliant songwriter, a breathtaking guitarist, profoundly unphotogenic, a Moslem, an awkward old sod. Richard Thompson has spent 20 eventful ...
The Sugarcubes: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Icecubes from Sugarland
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, 10 December 1988
Paying the price of fame and fortune, The Sugarcubes have talked and I smiled themselves through a seemingly endless round of interviews and gigs. Now ...
Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Summer 1988
Mark Mothersbaugh on de-evolution, DNA, and the new dystopia, plus retirement and reformation, and the desert that is Los Angeles
File format: mp3; file size: 45.6mb, interview length: 47' 29" sound quality: **
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1988
The Black Rock pioneers debate race, the reclamation of rock by black musicians, and both the tensions and the possibilities contained by the cultural melting pot that is New York's Five Boroughs.
File format: mp3; file size: 59.2meg, interview length: 1h 01' 40" sound quality: ***
The Who's Pete Townshend (1989)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1989
Mr Townshend talks at length about what drives him creatively; the ossification of US classic rock radio; his resentment that songs like 'Won't Get Fooled Again' overshadow more personal work; his belief in the status of rock as art, and the death of the Who as a creative force.
File format: mp3; file size: 50.8mb, interview length: 55' 27" sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, January 1989
A GREATEST HITS without 'Oh Well'? 'Man Of The World'? 'The Green Manalishi'? A Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits without, for goodness' sake, 'Albatross'?!? Apart from ...
Fairport Convention: Trebles all round!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1989
The revived Fairport Convention are celebrating their thriving cottage industry, Woodworm Records, with a 40-date tour. But it wasn’t always beer and skittles... ...
Edie Brickell: "Irreplaceable": Edie Brickell & the Bohemians
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
CURRENTLY HIGHER in the US Top 10 than the latest blockbusters by Bon Jovi and U2 is the first album by a group which, until ...
Deacon Blue: When The World Knows Your Name
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
Starry-eyed and real gone, Deacon Blue are born to run and run. ...
Depeche Mode: The Unlikely Lads
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
The latest stadium-filling attraction in the States is a band that began as a cheaply equipped electronic pop act from Basildon. Today, Depeche Mode are ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 1989
The Simple Minds frontman expounds on such subjects as latest album Street Fighting Years; writing political lyrics and taking political stands; and how travel has informed his life from hitch-hiking as a kid to touring the world.
File format: mp3; file size: 61.1mb, interview length: 1h 06' 46" sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
UNLIKE THE Sex Pistols, the other great London punk-rock group had ambitions beyond delivering the short, sharp shock to the system suggested by the sudden ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
Come to the heart of the Trossach mountains, breathe the fresh Perthshire air, and discover a troupe of weary travellers footsore from their labours upon ...
Deacon Blue: The Pilgrims’ Progress: Deacon Blue
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
Raised on solid moral values like hard work and the importance of belief, Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue has steered his band to the heady ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, July 1989
The mould-breaking Chicago groupie on her life from being a star-struck kid to pulling out Jimi's pubes, via being snogged by Andrew Loog Oldham, her discovery of the "hampton", and her ingenious way with dental plaster. Features a "cast" of thousands!
File format: mp3; file size: 56.9mb, interview length: 1h 02' 08" sound quality: ** (background noise)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1989
Tears and consolation: the gospel according to Maria McKee. ...
Maria McKee: To The Manor Born: Maria McKee
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1989
Maria McKee has mingled with rock’s aristocracy since she was a babe-in-arms. At three she was on first-name terms with Frank Zappa, while to Arthur ...
The Penis De Milo: Cynthia Plaster Claster
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1989
Cynthia was a normal 1960s American teenager, with an abnormal interest in rock musicians. Then, one day in art school, she was told "to make ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1989
The highway to hell is a merciless thoroughfare for the all-girl heavy metal band. Male counterparts regard you with deep suspicion, record companies run a ...
Björk, The Sugarcubes: The Sugarcubes: "World Domination or Die!"
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1989
Such is the manifesto of Iceland's Sykurmolar, internationally more familiar as The Sugarcubes. And to this end they have invested funds from their rapidly increasing ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1989
Guru to innumerable pale and interesting persons, champion of all things noisesome and "challenging", fully paid-up Good Bloke... When John Peel celebrated his 50th birthday ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
Ten fingers, 88 keys, 569 days – the rise and fall of Jerry Lee Lewis. ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
AS DEBUT LP titles go, Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby is a mouthful, but a memorable mouthful. ...
Morrissey, The Smiths: Morrissey: The Soft Touch
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
Your fans are fiercely loyal but always "with an aura of love and gentleness". You’re being sued by two former band members but accept it ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
Chauffered car-rides on the record company’s account bear witness to The Wedding Present’s emergence out of indie-land’s "shambling" band scene. But for their singer Dave ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1989
Part 1 of Mat Snow's monumental interview with Morrissey in 1989.
File format: mp3; file size: 91.3mb, interview length: 1h 35' 08" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1990
A press conference in which our William chats about the Oliver Stone Doors movie, breaking his leg, becoming a father and much more. Some of the questions are clipped, inaudible or missing entirely, but the answers make up for it!
File format: mp3; file size: 26.1mb; Interview length: 28' 33"; sound quality: **
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, 1990
THIS MONTH adds another blockbuster to record shelves. Presented with the requisite lavishly illustrated booklet, This Woman's Work is the title which gathers together Kate ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1990
The Slapp Happy man (right channel), with help from younger brother Kristoffer (left channel) looks back at his pioneering Kraut/Art rock combo, its merger with Henry Cow and subsequent bust-up, and his subsequent musical adventures including bonding with XTC's Andy Partridge.
File format: mp3; file size: 44.7mb, interview length: 48' 47" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1990
The man known as "Q" talks, between mouthfuls, about meeting Stravinsky; trying to put Michael Jackson together with Prince; the people he has known, from Dinah Washington to Colin Powell via Miles Davis and many others; and on the state of black America.
File format: mp3; file size: 39mb, interview length: 42' 37" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1990
ALREADY A MINOR celebrity in the fevered confines of New Romantic London clubland, Boy George's band Culture Club secured a deal with Virgin in early ...
Gipsy Kings: Let's Do The Shoe Right Here!
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1990
IN THE PLAIN of the Camargue, where the Rhone feeds into the Mediterranean, lies the small but distinguished town of Arles Settled by the Ancient ...
Fine Young Cannibals: Hands On! Fine Young Cannibals
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1990
They turned down top photographers, refused advertising offers, ignored invitations from the Hollywood glitterati (bar a dinner-date with Madonna). They scrutinized every detail of their ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, March 1990
The legendary rock photographer looks back at his life and times, snapping (and hanging out with) the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Janis Joplin and many, many more.
File format: mp3; file size: 46.5mb, interview length: 50' 48" sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, March 1990
SINCE SUCH NAMES as Simone De Beauvoir and Eve Marie Saint dropped from Lloyd Cole's lips on his debut with The Commotions, 1984's Rattlesnakes, the ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
BY ONE OF those neat symmetries, David Bowie introduced his prime persona at the very end of the '60s with Space Oddity, and laid it ...
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
THERE'S A NEW story about The Beatles, and it was told by Pete Best, the drummer famous for getting sacked. ...
Fleetwood Mac: Mick Fleetwood (1990)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, April 1990
The Fleetwood Mac drummer tells the whole story, from forming the band with Peter Green in 1967 to Behind the Mask in 1990: his close relationship with Green, and Green's departure; the Brit blues scene; taking acid with the Grateful Dead; the rocky early '70s and Bob Welch; Jeremy Spencer and the Children of God; hooking up with Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks; the huge success and attendant excess...
File format: mp3; file size: 146.6mb, interview length: 2h 32' 42" sound quality: **½
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, April 1990
From the Miracles to Buffalo Springfield, Robert Plant revisits the music that most influenced his musical youth: Bo Diddley; the productions of Joe Meek; collecting records and the Black Country scene; the move from R&B to psychedelia, and blues, blues and more blues...
File format: mp3; file size: 83.7mb, interview length: 1h 31' 24" sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
ROBERT PLANT'S ALBUM Now And Zen was one of 1988's more delightful surprises: whilst quoting in jest from his own proud past in Led Zeppelin ...
The Cramps: From Hell to Eternity
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
Ravaged, cadaverous, generally rather unsavoury, they crawled from rock 'n' roll's crypt to bring their X-rated voodoobilly music to a devoted troupe of ghoulish disciples. ...
The Quireboys: Right Place, Wrong Decade
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
"Guy?" A little voice wheedles from the small but perfectly formed Griff, lead guitarist with The Quireboys. "Have you got any of that stuff, Guy?" ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
HIS STANDING AS the Greatest Living Englishman only jeopardised by that nasty prang on the old Harley, Sir William Idol has in fact reinforced his ...
Fleetwood Mac: Mick Fleetwood: The Ancient Tympanist…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
... and he stoppeth one of three. With a cautionary tale about a troupe of travelling musicians who, seeking their fortunes, embarked upon a journey ...
Robert Plant’s Record Collection
Guide by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
BACK IN the Spring of 1968, things aren't looking too rosy for 19-year-old singer Robert Plant. His promising group The Band Of Joy have just ...
Jim Marshall: Right Place, Right Time
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1990
Jim Marshall's taut black-and-white photographs, unobtrusively snapped in unguarded moments, are a powerfully evocative record of that first freewheeling decade before the men with the ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1990
YOU DO NOT listen to John Hiatt for easy-going likeability. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, July 1990
British Blues legend John Mayall looks back to the start of the Blues Boom; on his guitar players Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor; revisits the Flamingo in Wardour Street; harp lessons from Sonny Boy Williamson and through to living in the USA and that house fire.
File format: mp3; file size: 107.3mb, interview length: 1h 51' 45" sound quality: ***
The B-52s: When Your World Falls Apart…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1990
Fate dealt a sobering blow to the plastic-shoed party terrorists from Athens, Georgia: their principal songwriter died when they were on the verge of worldwide ...
John Mayall: This Is Where I Came In
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1990
The Flamingo in Soho, 1964: bearded disciples and pilled-up mods are packed into an airless basement. Brooms are being dusted, mojos worked, as the Hohner-huffing ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1990
IN DAYS OF yore, the elders tell, the grassy slopes of Knebworth would resound to the pagan strains of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers and ...
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1990
ONE WOULD IMAGINE that even the most loyal fan must be groaning under the weight of paper and ink dedicated of late to the venerable ...
Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour (1990)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1990
The Floyd's axe-man looks back at the making of the first post-Waters Floyd album, A Momentary Lapse Of Reason, taking the album on tour, Rick Wright's position in the band, and the ongoing grief with Roger Waters.
File format: mp3; file size: 94.6mb, interview length: 1h 43' 13" sound quality: **½
Pink Floyd: David Gilmour: The Rightful Heir?
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1990
Twenty-five years ago he was just the hired hand. Then he became Syd Barrett's full-time replacement. By 1985, following group leader Roger Waters' traumatic exit, ...
The Pixies: Bossanova (4AD CAD 0010)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, September 1990
QUEASY The Pixies: What can they mean? What are they on? ...
George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
SOME THREE YEARS and 14 million copies later, George Michael follows up his solo debut Faith with an album that should prove to any lingering ...
Jimi Hendrix: Bitter Experience
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
It was 20 years ago today...that Jimi Hendrix's brief but brilliant career came to an end. To mark the occasion, his former colleagues have published ...
Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads: Meet The Family: Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
There's Debbie, and there's Tina and, let's see, there's little Joey, hasn't he grown? Then there's and Chris and, uh, Chris... From the shadowy depths ...
World Party: In A World Of His Own
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
Karl Wallinger’s wilderness years were ended when he formed World Party. Gone forever the endless dabblings that took him from the rock ‘n’ roll ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
THERE ARE FEW people who will deny that the first time they lowered the needle on side one, track one of album one, Are You ...
Randy Travis: Heroes & Friends (Warner Bros 75992631)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
IT'S A MEASURE of how far country golden boy Randy Travis has come in only five years that he can attract such a stellar cast ...
The Doors: Velvet Menace and Sudden Rage
Retrospective by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
Oblique visionaries, pioneering musicians, "missionaries of apocalyptic sex", The Doors cast a giant shadow forward over the new wave music and have come to symbolize ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
The Shamen switched orbits from the doomed indie rock circuit, re-entering as dancedelic house cosmonauts with a mobile ‘interactive’ club show. Mat Snow steps cautiously ...
Various Artists: Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
IN 1950 NEW YORKER Jac Holzman started Elektra with $600 of his bar mitzvah money, recording artists in their own homes with a tape machine ...
The Rolling Stones: Bill Wyman: Stone Alone
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990
UNTIL HE WAS 26, Bill Perks was a suburban South Londoner, married with a kid and a secure job, having done his National Service rising ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990
IT IS FOUR in the afternoon and Shaun Ryder, the allegedly handsome front man of Happy Mondays, is enjoying his breakfast. Manchester being the only ...
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990
IT IS 10 YEARS since, disconsolate at the death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin ceased to be. Though there is perhaps no conscious attempt ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1990
Paice and Lord talk about the early days of Purple, up until the first departure of... Ian Gillan, who talks about both the first and second versions of Purple, but mostly about how much he hates Ritchie Blackmore!
Ian Paice & Jon Lord: File format: mp3; file size: 86mb, interview length: 1h 33' 54" sound quality: *** Ian Gillan: File format: mp3; file size: 64.4mb, interview length: 1h 10' 23" sound quality: * (phoner)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1990
Bassman Glover on his musical roots, and the early days; Blackmore on Ian Gillan and more...
Roger Glover: File format: mp3; file size: 75.1mb, interview length: 1h 22' 03" sound quality: ** Ritchie Blackmore: File format: mp3; file size: 69mb, interview length: 1h 15' 24" sound quality: **
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1991
In that inimitable Black Country accent, Ozzy talks about his background, musical roots and the birth and death of Black Sabbath. Sacked by Sabbath, saved by Sharon, going solo: Ozzy tells all about the ups, the downs, the addiction and alcoholism. Drugs! Drink! Management Rip-Offs! It's all here.
File format: mp3 File size: 85.2mb Interview length: 1h 28' 42", sound quality: ***
The Beautiful South: Vive La Slight Difference!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1991
AS THE Beautiful South's single ‘A Little Time’ slips down the UK charts from Number 1, in Germany it's starting to pick up sales. And ...
Bill Wyman, The Rolling Stones: Who the hell does Bill Wyman think he is?
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1991
WITH SOME 15 minutes to go before the appointed end of our 60-minute afternoon session, your reporter is having a decidedly sticky moment with Bill ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1991
Ian hated Ritchie. Ritchie hated Ian. Roger had to go, but then he came back. Jon stayed, and David joined. Then Ritchie left — and ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1991
From his arrival in swinging London in the mid-'60s, through Hawkwind and on to Mötörhead, with asides on drug dealing (and taking), the Ladbroke Grove scene, and discussions on WW2 and tattoos!
File format: mp3; file size: 93mb, interview length: 1h 41' 32" sound quality: **
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1991
TONIGHT, ON the last leg of their sold-out tour of Europe, The Charlatans play Amsterdam's modish Milkweg — the Milky Way in almost bilingual Holland ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, March 1991
The British Blues-rock bass wunderkind talks about joining John Mayall at 15, then of his years with the fabulous Free, including the writing of the iconic 'All Right Now', and Paul Kossoff's descent into drugs.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 42.8meg, total interview length: 54' 35" sound quality: ***
Lemmy, Motorhead: Lemmy: Just Say… Yes!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1991
Lemmy did not get where he is today by shying away from all the doubtful pleasures the rock'n'roll life can offer. As the grand old ...
One-Hit Wonders: They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!
Guide by Mat Snow, Q, March 1991
Rock ‘n’ roll, they say, is a cruel mistress. How often has pop fame proved but a tragically brief interlude between obscurity and oblivion! Well, ...
Andy Fraser, Free: Andy Fraser: Out Of It
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1991
A rainy night in Shrewsbury was to alter the course of Andy Fraser's life. For it was there in 1970 that he first hummed the ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1991
NO STRANGER TO the extravagant gesture, on the sleeve of his first all-new long-player since 1988's Viva Hate, Morrissey is pictured from below as if ...
Annie Lennox, Eurythmics: Annie Lennox: Hmm... What Rhymes with "Angst"?
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991
Her career has not been what she would call a bed of roses. For Annie Lennox, more like a diary of private nightmares played out ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991
MUCH HAS HAPPENED to Simple Minds since their 1989 album Street Fighting Years topped the album charts in nine countries. ...
The Troggs: The Legendary "Troggs Tapes"
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991
Long before there was Spinal Tap, there was something else that stood for all that is inept in rock'n'roll. A fading pop group assembled in ...
Elvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
RECENTLY OBSERVED sporting a trainee Father Christmas beard and chewing the fat with Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello seemed to have completed his self-reinvention as a ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
So, farewell Jane's Addiction? They were born in LA's sleaziest clubs, and hailed as this year's brightest hopes. Now their leader Perry Farrell wants the ...
Robert Fripp, Toyah Wilcox: Robert Fripp and Toyah: Mr Chalk Loves Mrs Cheese
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
They seemed to belong to different worlds: the avant-garde guitar boffin and the marmalade-haired Princess of Punk. Listen awhile, as Mat Snow recounts the ...
Michael Bolton: Not Very Big In Belgium
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1991
LAST YEAR Michael Bolton was in L.A. working on his new album, the follow up to the multi-platinum Soul Provider, when he got a telephone ...
EMF: Naughty Neophytes of Noise
Interview by Mat Snow, Musician, August 1991
The thin line between accessibility and credibility ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
Guilty of making music that was going out of style in 1973. Guilty of flying the tattered flag of rock'n'roll idealism. Guilty, indeed, "of never ...
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Into The Great Wide Open
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
THE TITLE says it all. Space, horizon and all those rich possibilities are so central to the idea of America that it's hardly surprising they ...
Transvision Vamp: The Little Magnets Versus The Bubble Of Babble
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
IT'S A FOOL who writes anyone off, but the supposedly triumphant return-to-the-fray that was the single '(I Just Wanna) B With U' barely penetrated an ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
"We've done our time in the backs of Transits!" ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
TODAY, MARIAH Carey is, at 21, the proud possessor of a debut album whose worldwide sales exceed seven million, and a pair of Grammys awarded ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
They're a notch above your average cochlea-rupturing, pensioner-intimidating thrash outfit, Metallica. But their passage from fresh-faced punk-paced hopefuls to multi-platinum metal phenomenon has not been ...
Sheena Easton: Mary Poppins Meets Deep Throat?
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
IT'S A MIGHTY long way from Bellshill, Glasgow, to Beverly Hills, LA, and for Sheena Easton, the journey started even before Esther Rantzen's The Big ...
Billy Bragg: Don't Try This At Home
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1991
"WHAT DO they know of England who only England know?" enquires Billy Bragg, Bard of Barking. He is quoting, with a tiny adjustment, Rudyard Kipling, ...
Beats International: Play That Funky Music, White Boy
Report by Mat Snow, Q, November 1991
SOME POP MUSICIANS know stardom has arrived when the crowds at the in-store signing have to be kept back by a police cordon. For others, ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1991
The blue collar rocker talks about his early days in Detroit, and about Detroit now; expresses his admiration for, and his parallels with, Bruce Springsteen; on his life as a road warrior, and his big breakthrough with the Live Bullet and Night Moves albums.
File format: mp3; file size: 53.2mb, interview length: 58' 04" sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1991
FOR FIVE YEARS R.E.M. steadily grew on Miles Copeland's IRS label until they took the Warner Bros shilling and were thus promoted to the big ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
Bob Seger is a hard-rockin' evergreen with a scrub of grizzly beard and a laugh like one of his native Detroit gas-guzzlers starting up on ...
Def Leppard's Joe Elliott (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1991
The Leppard frontman looks back at guitarist Steve Clark's descent into alcoholism and eventual death: how it impacted the making of latest album Adrenalize; guitarist Phil Collen stepping up in Clark's absence; how it is possible for rockers to grow old; the essential escapism of metal, and how marvellously uncool it is.
File format: mp3; file size: 45.4mb, interview length: 47' 15" sound quality: ***
Lisa Stansfield: Northern Soul
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
WHEN THERE’S promotion to be done, it's all go chez Lisa Stansfield. At 11 in the morning, the house is full of people. BBC2's Rapido ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
WITH EACH NEW U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
Metallica's Lars Ulrich (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Summer 1991
Mat Snow talks to Metallica's Lars Ulrich about his roots, the formation of Metallica and on through the history of the band. Massive.
File format: MP3 File size: 250.8 mb Interview length: 4h 33' 59" Sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1991
From taking the morning train to having the look, Mat Snow probes Sheena Easton about her life in music, Esther Rantzen, Kenny Rogers, Prince and all.
File format: mp3; file size: 56.9mb, interview length: 1h 02' 09" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1992
From stately homes in Essex to luxury pads in Florida, various members of the Maiden talk about their lives off the road: playing football; drinking real ale, and whether or not they miss their (mostly) London roots.
File format: mp3; file size: 49.2mb, interview length: 51' 14" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1992
From the Birds to the Stones, via Jeff Beck and the Faces, rock'n'roll's favourite scarecrow tells the whole story...
File format: mp3 File size: 95.4mb Interview length: 1h 44' 13" Sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, January 1992
Michael Jackson: hip hop and gospel, Slash and God, sublime and ridiculous. ...
R.E.M.: Touched! Chuffed! Etc!
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1992
For R.E.M., 1991 will always be the year in which a low-key LP brought them high-profile success, the year a tiny tour won them a ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: CSN: CSN Box-Set
Review by Mat Snow, Q, February 1992
DAVID CROSBY, STEPHEN STILLS AND Graham Nash: respectively refugees from The Byrds (fired by Roger McGuinn), Buffalo Springfield (broke up) and Manchester's very own Hollies ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1992
If you have a moment, Tori Amos, composer, songstress and troubled soul has a few things she’d like to get off her chest. There’s her ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, March 1992
THE RISE AND fall and rise of Aerosmith has been rock's most up-beat cautionary tale of the last few years. ...
Eddi Reader, Fairground Attraction: Mrs Ordinary Boring MacTartan: Eddi Reader
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1992
Unbearably arrogant, brimming with self-confidence, "in ya face" ... Eddi Reader is distinctly lacking in these most basic of frontperson qualifications. "I’m very insecure," she ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1992
You're a hard-rockin' heavy metal mutha of — how shall we put it? — a certain age. A mid-life crisis looms! But if you're Gary ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1992
They used to be called Venereal and The Diseases. They owe their career to a bank manager called Roger. They've sold their souls to the ...
Joe Cocker: All Together Now: Joe Cocker
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1992
After two decades blurred by addiction, tragedy and confusion, Joe Cocker is back in the saddle and preparing to mount a well-timed comeback. "I just ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1992
Shameless image-mongers? Absolutely. Cynical marketing merchants? Good point. Purveyors of welterweight pop metal? Fair comment. But gay? "You’ll meet enough women who’ll tell you we’re ...
The Fatima Mansions: Fatima Mansions: Valhalla Avenue
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
IN THEIR CHOICE of support act in the UK, no one could accuse U2 of playing safe. ...
The Beautiful South: Assembly Rooms, Derby
Live Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
IN THE FINAL of the Barclays' Football League programme for the 1991-92 season, The Beautiful South have deviated from the script that identifies them as ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
Self-promotion can be such a draining business: what with weeing on record company executives' desks, administering on-stage blow jobs and showing up hours late for ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
GOTH, HAS ALWAYS BEEN more of a fashion statement than a musical phenomenon. ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
Was goth really any more than wearing silly clothes and humming funereal dirges? ...
Elvis Presley: The King Of Rock'n'Roll: The Complete '50s Masters
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1992
FROM US postage stamps to academic treatises like Greil Marcus's Dead Elvis which ponders how a rock singer ends up as apple-pie as Abe Lincoln, ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
LOCATED IN one of the drearier fringes of the City of London, Strongroom Studios offers an oasis of cool, high-tech sheen. The main studio gleams ...
Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham: Lindsey Buckingham: Your Money or Your Wife!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
It was a real-life adult farce: drinks and shrinks, drugs and deceit, marital breakdowns and "lifestyle-problems", lies and lunacy. Then Lindsey Buckingham quit Fleetwood Mac. ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
Has Matthew Sweet quietly gone and made one of the best rock albums of the year? ...
R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Mike Mills (1992)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1992
The two multi-instrumentalists talk about recording Automatic for the People; writing songs for Stipe; not working with big-name musicians; favourite Beatles albums; confronting Tipper Gore; their musical heroes, and a whole lot more.
File format: mp3; file size: 57mb, interview length: 1h 02' 18" sound quality: ***½
Review by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
NOW IN their 30s, this band are no longer quite so youthful as when they formed 11 years ago in New York, yet they remain ...
Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells II
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1992
IN 1973, THE 49-minute progressive-rock classic Tubular Bells not only seeded the Virgin empire by selling 16 million copies but also set a benchmark of ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1992
THE LAST RESORT is a civilised eatery offering a wide selection of imported beers in what must surely be – after Asbury Park, New Jersey ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
IN THE MIDDLE of the night, all blocks in mid-Manhattan offer a blank facade. But behind one particular stout steel door lurks a true temple ...
R.E.M.: Lyrically Dark, Musically Oddball
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
R.E.M.'s new album, Automatic For The People, is released this month. Here, the group dissect the LP, track by track...hang on, Automatic For The People? ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
NEARLY 15 YEARS after John Lydon quit the Sex Pistols, effectively ending them bar a few final pranks, his subsequent band, PiL, find themselves no ...
Bob Dylan: Acoustic/Good As I Been To You
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
PERHAPS AN even bigger shock than his 1965 electrification, in 1992 Dylan goes acoustic. And whereas back in '65 the spokesman for his generation was ...
Hank Marvin, The Shadows: Hank Marvin: The King Of Twang
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
Raise your glasses to Hank B. Marvin: more than mere rhyming slang. ...
Prince: Crazy Place, Crazy Guy
Report by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
LIKE SO MUCH in life, the reality of Paisley Park proves a little different from the ad. Where is the laughing girl on the see-saw ...
13th Floor Elevators: Easter Everywhere
Review by Mat Snow, Q, 1993
THE SECOND INSTALMENT of Decal's noble policy of reissuing all four 13th Floor Elevators albums finds the influence of San Francisco (whose Avalon Ballroom they ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1993
The former Roxy frontman talks about his new album, Taxi; about doing cover versions; solo vs. groups; looks back at Roxy Music and Eno; his sensitivity to criticism; the stars he's met and his love of classic soul.
File format: mp3; file size: 111.9mb, interview length: 2h 02' 10" sound quality: **
Review by Mat Snow, Q, January 1993
IT HAD to happen. Rock's back catalogue has been repackaged so often from so many angles that sooner or later the selling point would become ...
Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry: My Indecision Is Final…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1993
Once he was the prolific matinee idol of spaceglam, the original Earl Of Suave and the king of luxuriously lined lovelessness. Now Bryan Ferry takes ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, February 1993
MATT JOHNSON, principal boy of The The, is 31 going on 17, a perennial quester after spiritual fulfilment and soul's ease. In his last two ...
Lenny Kravitz: Come in, sit down, skin up…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1993
Enter, why don't you, Lenny Kravitz's psychedelically appointed freak pad, where herbular smells prevail, outdoor footwear is outlawed and co-habitees number willowy blondes and cantankerous ...
Mick Jagger: Wandering Spirit (Atlantic)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, March 1993
A GLAMOROUS grandad of 49, no one in rock'n'roll is more tightly corsetted than Mick Jagger. His iron determination to keep lean and mean, to ...
k.d. lang: k.d. Sings The Blues
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1993
She’s a genre-hopping pantheist, Lesbian, vegetarian, big-mouthed aromatherapist. In big boots. Yet despite unpromising ingredients, k.d. lang’s multi-layered cake continues to rise quite beautifully and ...
Paul Weller: Fibrous — Paul Weller: The Town And Country Club, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Q, May 1993
Songs in the key of Angst Minor. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 1993
Messrs. Cale and Reed (with short contributions from Morrison and Tucker) talk about the current reunion and look back at the original band: the dynamics of the Reed/Cale relationship; Cale's ouster from the band; the sound of the band; and the songs they play and the characters that surrounded the band at the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.
File format: mp3; in 3 parts, total file sizes: 92.6mb, total interview length: 1h 42' 05" sound quality: ***
Terence Trent D'Arby: Symphony Or Damn: The Tension Inside The Sweetness (Columbia)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1993
SO MUCH for "that difficult third album". Being a precocious kind of guy, Terence Trent D'Arby cleared that hurdle one album early, 1989's Neither Fish ...
Donald Fagen: Kamakiriad (Warner Bros.)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1993
KAMAKIRIAD (Japanese for "insect" but used in this case as a futuristic steam-driven car with its own vegetable garden) tells of a journey, as much ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: Party On, Dudes!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1993
The kinky boots and whips have gone; so have the "interesting" light shows and the medicinal heroin. But, yes, The Velvet Underground — the most ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1993
THE ONLY 1980s musician with a teased hairdo who was actually forgiven for it, Aimee Mann started the 1990s staring up from the dumper. ...
Paul Rodgers: Muddy Waters Blues (Victory)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1993
Whoever declared that new art is created when somebody gets old art wrong may well have had blues-rock in mind. ...
Duran Duran: The Amazing Lazarus Brothers
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1993
"I MASTURBATE to Duran Duran videos," announced Andy Warhol in his twilight days. Should one's speculations incline in that direction, one wonders whether the peroxide-periwigged ...
The Proclaimers: Eight Eyes, One Vision
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1993
The Proclaimers: Top 10 in America after four years in the wilderness. ...
Paul Weller: We All Make Mistakes
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1993
He split Britain's most loyally supported rock band to form a collective specializing in weedy white sould and ersatz jazz. He created "a Motown for ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1993
The Cure are a cult band much as Scientology is a cult religion: their adherents are legion and the degree of cultist identification is intense. ...
Guide by Mat Snow, Johnny Black, Q, November 1993
... and the law, being an all-powerful customer, usually won. Johnny Black and Mat Snow investigate the link between the crazy, hot-headed outlaws of rock ...
Pearl Jam: 'You, My Son, Are Weird!'
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1993
They’ve a singer, Eddie Vedder, who makes Lou Reed look like a happy-go-lucky bloke; they’re vilified in the press and manically suspicious of The Biz. ...
Pet Shop Boys: Very (Parlophone)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1993
NEXT YEAR Neil Tennant celebrates both his 40th birthday and the tenth anniversary of the first Pet Shop Boys record, 'West End Girls'. Chances are ...
The Beatles: Backbeat: A Bit Of Slap And A Wig
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1994
Backbeat, the much-trumpeted, unauthorised Beatles biopic with the grunge-pedigree soundtrack, est arrivé. It revolves around the tragic story of original bassist Stu Sutcliffe, who died ...
The Rolling Stones: VooDoo Lounge
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 1994
CONFRONTED BY THE FIRST STUDIO ALBUM IN NEARLY FIVE years, for most Stones fans the question is not, Is it as good as Exile/Beggars/name your ...
Spin Doctors: The Spin Doctors
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 1994
AT FIRST GLANCE there is little to distinguish the 150,000 revellers gathered on the opening day of the 1994 Glastonbury Festival from the millionaire rock ...
Buffalo Springfield : Expecting To Fly
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 1994
WHEN NEIL YOUNG arrived in February 1966, Los Angeles was the pop capital of America. For a city so derided, usually by its Californian rival ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1994
The sould legend from the Quad-cities, Tri-states area on Otis, Bobby Womack, his love of country music, and the making of the National Anthem of North-West Alabama, 'When A Man Loves A Woman'.
File format: mp3; file sizes: 78.4meg, interview length: 1h 21' 42" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1994
"ONE THING I'VE NOTICED driving around in this part of Switzerland is that there are no flowers. It's relentlessly green in Geneva – they must ...
Chris Rea: The Very Best of (East West)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1994
Somewhere left of Eric Clapton and Phil Collins resides Chris Rea, a bluesman for whom the burden of life consists less of stones in his ...
Grant Lee Buffalo: The trio from Paranoid City
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1994
ONE GLANCE AT the music and movie tastes of acclaimed rock trio Grant Lee Buffalo would tell you that their home town is Los Angeles. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1994
Promoting her autobiography, la Faithfull talks at length about, well, just about everything really: writing the book with David Dalton; being called a witch by the Catholic Church; the aesthetics of sex, and the Rolling Stones and the Redlands bust.
File format: mp3; file size: 62.4mb, interview length: 1h 08' 10" sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
AT A TIME WHEN X-CHROMOSOME COUNTRY has never resided further from the factory floor, honky-tonk and dreamed-of mansion on the hill, Joy Lynn White sings ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1994
"MINNIE MOUSE on helium," was how wags described Madonna back in the days of 'Holiday' and 'Lucky Star'. Such a girlie voice clearly betokened a ...
Marianne Faithfull: Venus & Mars
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1994
Stop sniggering at the back. Marianne Faithfull may well have bedded the world and his whippet, but that smutty old story about the cunningly concealed ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin: Page and Plant
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
THE DATE: Thursday, September 29,1994. THE PLACE: a table outside a café in Tottenham Street, London W1. THE CAST: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Mat Snow ...
Percy Sledge: A Beautiful Life
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1967, THE MACON, GEORGIA, office of Phil Walden and Associates, management and booking agents, was thronging with the most heavyweight soul ...
New York Dolls: Hairspray and Hard Drugs: The New York Dolls
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1995
The Stones in drag, the proto-Sex Pistols, Aerosmith's role models, Morrissey's mad aunts. What were the legendary New York Dolls about, other than leather, leopardskin, ...
Graham Parker: Phone Home: Graham Parker
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, February 1995
I HAVE A PLACE HERE IN THE Catskill mountains in New York state, about nine miles away from Woodstock. I've had it since 1988, before ...
Alanis Morissette: Alanis Morrisette
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 1995
IF ANY SONG THIS YEAR CAN BOAST A million-dollar couplet, it is 'You Oughta Know' from the album Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. "Is ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1995
WHATEVER PAUL McCARTNEY is on in 1995, they should dump it in the water supply. Talcum-pink of complexion and trim of figure, only a curious ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, January 1996
ANTHOLOGY IS RIGHT. HERE IS A SEQUENCE of snap shots that just so happen to have been taken in the six years from 1958's toddling ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
EVERY FEW YEARS AN ALBUM IS MADE IN LOS Angeles of such wistful sunniness that it sets up shop on the radio for months on ...
The Beatles: "We're a damn good little band"
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
On the eve of the release of Anthology 3, Paul McCartney casts his mind back to The Beatles' glorious sunset. * ...
Review and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
JUST WHEN THE TOP WERE sounding like they'd run out of juice a mere 26 years into their career, they pull out a plum. Could ...
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1996
On December 10, 1968, some of the most exciting talent in rock history gathered for an event all the more legendary for having been quietly ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, March 1997
U2 have a fine sense of event and how to tweak it. Preceded by advance publicity suggesting more than enough stylistic innovation to maintain the ...
Ron Sexsmith: Other Songs (Interscope)
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Mat Snow, MOJO, July 1997
Follow-up to 1995's self-titled debut, again produced by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake. ...
Led Zeppelin: The BBC Sessions (Atlantic)
Review and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1997
Led Zeppelin's first official all-live release since 1976's The Song Remains The Same. The 2-CD set is drawn from sessions recorded for the BBC before ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Walking Into Clarksdale
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mat Snow, MOJO, May 1998
WHEN, IN 1994, MTV approached Robert Plant – otherwise engaged making records with unknown youngbloods, and saying rude things about Jimmy Page for working with ...
New Radicals: Mojo Rising: New Radicals
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, May 1999
The cat in the hat with a heart full of soul. ...
The Black Crowes, Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek (SPV)
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2000
Recorded live in October’99, a scorching blues-rock hit-packed double album like they used to make ‘em. ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2000
WITH EACH new U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
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 ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
ROUGH TRADE is 25 years old. In its early days, you wouldn’t have got odds on the firm lasting another 25 weeks. And like so ...
The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones: Rockumentaries on the Biography Channel
Film/DVD/TV Review by Mark Pringle, Mat Snow, Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 3 March 2001
Not long ago, any glimpse on the box of a great musician was like catching sight of the lesser spotted grebe – all the lovelier ...
Obituary by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, 1 November 2001
"Friendly. Grouchy. Kind. Grudging. Selfless. Resentful. Materialistic. Unworldy." ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, July 2002
IT'S NOT a question much asked, but what if Messrs Page and Jones had managed to secure the services of their first choice, Terry Reid, ...
The Rolling Stones: Forty Licks
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 2002
HERE'S AN album with something for everyone. For Virgin/EMI it's a shot at a Beatles 1-style blockbuster to prop up sagging third-quarter figures. For newbies ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...
The Beatles: Richard Lester (2004)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 2004
Film director Lester looks back at A Hard Day's Night, Help!, working with Lennon on How I Won The War, and his life as a film-maker.
File format: mp3; file size: 51.2mb, interview length: 55' 53" sound quality: ***
Johnny Cash: Unearthed (American Recordings/Lost Highway)
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, January 2004
A fitting musical monument for a monumental life and career ...
The Zutons: Tired of Hangin' Around
Review by Mat Snow, The Guardian, 14 April 2006
CONFRONTED BY the first Zutons album in a blind test, experts might well have identified it as the work of some long-forgotten art school band ...
Review by Mat Snow, The Guardian, 5 May 2006
SOUL IS crowded with beautiful voices who set their sights no higher than singing sweet nothings. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 2006
THERE AREN'T too many singers who've been shot, stabbed, burst their pancreas, and had their right leg amputated at the knee. Fewer still whose career ...
Evan Dando, The Lemonheads: Evan Dando: 'I Can't Completely Let Go Of Drugs – And I Don't Want To'
Interview by Mat Snow, The Guardian, 23 August 2006
He was the golden boy of grunge, and then he threw it all away. Evan Dando tells Mat Snow why he wants to make a ...
The Pursuit Of Happiness: None Of Your Rubbish
Retrospective by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2006
This month, retrieved from the void of obscurity: kidult-oriented Canadian pop glory. ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Highway Companion
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2006
On his third outing without the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty mixes nostalgia, protest and resignation to pay bittersweet tribute to his rock'n'roll radio roots. ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 2006
ON THE Friday night of September 23, 1966, former Animals bassist-turned-would-be-starmaker Chas Chandler, Animals road manager Terry McVay, and Jimmy (as he was then) Hendrix ...
Madeleine Peyroux: Half The Perfect World
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 2006
A truly beautiful record and one from the heart, sighs Mat Snow. A romantic masterpiece is born. ...
Damien Rice: 9 (14th Floor) **
Review by Mat Snow, The Guardian, 3 November 2006
A HEARTBREAK ALBUM for those who weep along to vintage Radiohead and Leonard Cohen rather than George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Damien Rice's 2002 debut, ...
Tom Waits: Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers And Bastards
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2006
Dylan? Dickens? Rembrandt? Shakespeare? A 21st century beggars' banquet. ...
Led Zeppelin: John Paul Jones: The Quiet One
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2007
IN THE WORLD'S loudest group, John Paul Jones was the Quiet One. He never seemed to speak, and though he grooved, it was pressed up ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, June 2008
Raised in a one-room cabin in Tennessee, schooled in love songs by a pompadoured '60s TV start, Dolly Parton turned her back on pop and ...
Walter Becker: Rock'n'Roll Confidential: Walter Becker
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 2008
One half of the Steely Dan superbrain talks Dylan, psychology and the blues. ...
Mike Oldfield: Lord Of The Rings
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2009
He created one of the most monolithic albums of the '70s, but behind the ambitious swoop of Tubular Bells lies a story of darkness, bad ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys: Tom Petty
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2009
This is the full, uncut version of the piece that appeared in Mojo, October 2009. ...
Peter Gabriel: Scratch My Back
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, February 2010
FOR MOST OF US, the prospect on paper of, quote, a "song exchange concept" between Peter Gabriel and a dozen other thinking-person's art-rockers old and ...
"You want blowjob?": Ageing (dis)gracefully
Comment by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, 1 February 2010
LAST YEAR I had an appointment at my local hospital with the orthopaedic consultant to have a look at my wonky knee. So there I ...
Donald Fagen: Sunken Condos — Drowning not waving
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2012
SUNKEN CONDOS: it's an eerie image; all our iPads, Audi TTs and bubble money submerged like Debussy's piano prelude 'La Cathedrale Engloutie'. So too our ...
Lez Zeppelin: How Many More Times? Many More, Please: Lez Zeppelin: The Garage, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, June 2013
SIX DECADES into the rock era, we are in the epoch of the tribute act. Which is to say, every act still going is a ...
George Clinton: Chocolate City – London/P-Funk Live At Metropolis
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 2015
Bells-and-whistles souvenir party bag of funk's wild weekend. ...
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