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Mike Barnes

Mike Barnes

Mike Barnes (pictured in January 2020 at the Word In Your Ear podcast, with hosts David Hepworth and Mark Ellen) gave up music journalism in 1989 after two months of stressful and unpaid toil. A live review of Gaye Bykers On Acid published in the notorious fanzine Lime Lizard, had been altered so much to the negative by the enthusiastically hands-on editor that the group’s manager professed a desire to give the budding writer a "good kicking". In Mike’s first interview feature in the same issue – on The Chills – the editor had inserted abusive comments about the Queen that bordered on treason.

These extreme examples of the vagaries of editorship caused Mike to bow out of this particular area of creative endeavour. Ultimately, though, they stood him in good stead for the future, as he was coaxed out of retirement the following year. A friend suggested he write for the nascent Select and he got the gig, contributing to the magazine from the first issue until its demise in 2000.

Along the way Mike became established as one of the principal writers for The Wire and he has been a regular contributor to MOJO from 1995. Deciding that he needed to broaden his horizons, Mike embarked upon writing a critical biography of Captain Beefheart. Seriously underestimating the difficulties of researching the subject in those pre-internet days, he worked at it on and off from 1996 until late 1998. Dissatisfied with his efforts, he ripped it up and started again, cancelling all engagements and working on it every day, even refusing to cut his hair until it was finished. Ten months later, in September 1999, the mentally shattered author – who now looked like a low-budget Howard Hughes – handed in the manuscript. The book was published in 2000 to considerable critical acclaim.

Predating and paralleling Mike’s career as a writer have been his activities as a drummer, playing all points between straight ahead rock and free improvisation. His first group, the Walking Floors, were heckled by U2 at their debut London gig in 1980, an incident that prompted a lifetime’s antipathy towards Bono and chums. The Floors were marginally less successful, although their recordings have been recently re-released on the Messthetics post-punk series. Although most of his groups have been obscure enough to barely trouble the scorers, Mike’s last three gigs have been at the Victoria Arts Centre, Melbourne, with Towering Inferno; at the Bull & Gate, London, with Damo Suzuki’s Network; and as one of the ten fuzz organists of Pimmel at the Foundry Gallery, Lewes, in January 2009. It’s certainly been interesting.

85 articles

List of articles in the library

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The Hummingbirds: LoveBUZZ

Review by Mike Barnes, Select, July 1990

IT IS SOBERING to realise that a number of bands who have been plucked from nowhere to be critically lauded have actually been inhabiting nowhere ...

Throwing Muses: The Real Ramona

Review by Mike Barnes, Select, March 1991

4AD SHOULD really come clean and put Play Loud stickers on copies of The Real Ramona. ...

Chickasaw Mudd Puppies: 8 Track Stomp

Review by Mike Barnes, Select, April 1991

MICHAEL STIPE'S production involvement with Chickasaw Mudd Puppies has given them welcome exposure. Still, the duo from Athens, Georgia, would like to be remembered for ...

Violent Femmes: Why Do Birds Sing?

Review by Mike Barnes, Select, May 1991

WHY DO BIRDS SING? is the long-awaited follow up to 3, Violent Femmes' fourth LP from 1988. Although it runs the spectrum of their past ...

Alan Vega: Power On To Zero Hour

Review by Mike Barnes, Select, October 1991

THROUGHOUT ALAN VEGA'S CAREER, from Suicide in the mid/late '70s to the present day, he has always had a strong, inherent grasp of the essence ...

Unmen: Music In Motion (Vinyl Japan LEBCD34 CD)

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 1995

UNMEN MIX up field recordings with programmed grooves, guitar, piano, brass — anything that sounds right. This approach is not so strange, considering that leader ...

Miles Davis, Brian Eno, Hatfield And The North, King Crimson, Charles Mingus, Pink Floyd, Public Enemy, The Raincoats, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Tony Williams, Robert Wyatt: Robert Wyatt: Invisible Jukebox

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, December 1995

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Ice-T: Invisible Jukebox: Ice-T

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 1996

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Laurie Anderson, Diamanda Galás, Skip James, Yoko Ono, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sainkho, Cecil Taylor: Invisible Jukebox: Diamanda Galás

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 1996

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Steve Reich: Electronic meditations

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 1996

In his sixtieth year, composer Steve Reich is still looking to the future, incorporating sampling, environmental sound and video art into the fabric of recent ...

Harold Budd: Invisible Jukebox: Harold Budd

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, January 1997

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Stereolab: Invisible Jukebox: Stereolab

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, October 1997

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Captain Beefheart, Jeff Morris Tepper: Hello Goodbye: Jeff Morris Tepper & Beefheart's Magic Band

Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, January 1998

Hello: August 1975 I WAS UP in the California Redwoods to check out housing and schools, and I saw Don drive by in this orange pumpkin-coloured ...

Fred Frith: The Frith Element

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 1998

Whether upfront on his own projects or undercover in groups like Naked City guitarist FRED FRITH has sought ever more imaginative ways to keep the ...

Long Fin Killie, Mouse On Mars, Salaryman, Tortoise: Tortoise, Mouse On Mars, Salaryman, Long Fin Killie: Electric Ballroom, London

Live Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 1998

IN 1997 THE toilers on rock's margins buffed their edges, dubbed in some breathing space and inserted enough kitsch samples to bring their experiments closer ...

Gary Lucas: Guitars and Monsters

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, June 1998

Former Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas might not have fulfilled his childhood ambition to become a vampire, but in wielding his avant-roots-noise music like a stiletto, ...

Diamanda Galas: Concert For The Damned

Live Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 1998

DIAMANDA GALAS has various modes of presentation, none of them easy. She has staged her AIDS trilogy as a multivoiced one-woman opera; she's sung her ...

The Balanescu Quartet, Bedouin Ascent, Big Star, Charlemagne Palestine, John Coltrane, Johnny Copeland, Funkadelic, Spiritualized, Suicide: Invisible Jukebox: Spiritualized

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 1998

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Pink Floyd: Epiphanies: Ummagumma

Memoir by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 1998

For Mike Barnes, life would have been a bummer, were it not for Ummagumma. ...

Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs

Review and Interview by Mike Barnes, Select, November 1998

THE FOURTH ALBUM from the US six-piece who now make their home in America's Catskill Mountains. In last month's Select Ed Chemical Brother described Deserter's ...

Bobby Beausoleil & The Freedom Orchestra , Blue Cheer, Butthole Surfers, John Paul Jones, T. Rex: Invisible Jukebox: John Paul Jones

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, September 1999

Every month we play a musician a series of recordswhich they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what they're ...

The High Llamas: High Llamas: Harmonies Don't Hurt

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, October 1999

"THERE IS A fear that pop music instils in a certain bunch of people, because they can't deal with tunes," says Sean O'Hagan, leader of ...

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica

Book Excerpt by Mike Barnes, 'Captain Beefheart: The Biography' (Quartet), 2000

"If there has been anything in the history of popular music which could be described as a work of art in a way that people ...

Evan Parker: Invisible Jukebox: Evan Parker

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, May 2000

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

HIM, Doug Scharin: HIM: Our Point of Departure

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 2000

DOUG SCHARIN certainly has the alchemists touch in assembling and directing groups of excellent musicians. ...

HIM, Doug Scharin: Doug Scharin: His Imperial Majesty

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, December 2000

Doug Scharin's masterful polyrhythms provide the pulsing backbone for groups such as Rex, Codeine and Out In Worship, as well as his own outfit HIM. ...

Otomo Yoshihide: Invisible Jukebox: Otomo Yoshihide

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, December 2000

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Shirley Collins: The Power Of The True Love Knot (Fledg'ling)

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, January 2001

THE POWER OF THE TRUE LOVE KNOT is a marvellous collection and a landmark release in English folk. ...

Gary Lucas: Invisible Jukebox: Gary Lucas

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 2001

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Irwin Chusid

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2001

Atrocity exhibitions ...

Stephen Malkmus, Pavement: Stephen Malkmus: Invisible jukebox

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2001

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Tortoise: Standards

Review and Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, March 2001

This time with added tunes! Album number four heralds a return to form for the chameleonic Chicago instrumental collective. ...

Autechre: Mathematics is the new rock'n'roll

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Independent, 29 April 2001

Being formulaic is what techno duo Autechre do. Good, says Mike Barnes ...

Current 93: Invisible Jukebox: Current 93

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, May 2001

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Laurie Anderson: Invisible Jukebox: Laurie Anderson

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2001

MOST PEOPLE first heard about Laurie Anderson when her 1980 single, 'O Superman', an eight minute voiceloop and vocoder incantation, reached number two in the ...

Sand

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, January 2002

Born gritty "THE MANY and varied musical backgrounds of the current Sand line-up lead the group to argue violently at length about compositional and performance ideas, ...

This Heat: Gareth Williams memorial concert: 93 Feet East, London

Live Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, April 2002

DEDICATED TO THE memory of Gareth Williams, who died of cancer in December last year, this concert was a far from formal affair. ...

Shirley Collins: Spirit Of Eden: Shirley Collins

Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, May 2002

"The main body of [folk music] is just based on myth and the Bible and plague and famine and all kinds of things like that ...

Arthur Lee, Love: Invisible Jukebox: Arthur Lee

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2002

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Tony Allen: Invisible Jukebox: Tony Allen

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, October 2002

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Kevin Ayers: Invisible Jukebox

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, December 2002

KEVIN AYERS was one of many curious teenagers who gravitated towards Wellington House at Lydden, near Canterbury, in the early '60s. The house was owned ...

Arthur Lee: Vindicator

Retrospective by Mike Barnes, MOJO, February 2003

"I THINK Jimi Hendrix was the best guitar player all round and one of the best musicians, creators and innovators I ever heard in my ...

The Sea And Cake: One Bedroom

Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, February 2003

Eight years down the line, the Chicago four-piece — three of whom are also visual artists — may well have produced their masterpiece. ...

Colin Newman, Wire: Invisible Jukebox: Colin Newman

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, April 2003

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Captain Beefheart: The Captain's Conjurors: The Magic Band

Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, April 2003

With the 1982 LP Ice Cream For Crow, the legendary Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, laid the final incarnation of his Magic Band back ...

Ron Geesin

Profile and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, September 2003

"Ron Geesin, composer for all media, live performer and one-man record company, works from his own studio both writing for musicians and working with complex ...

Robert Wyatt: Cuckooland

Review and Interview by Mike Barnes, Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 2003

Wyatt's first album for six years features guest appearances by Annie Whitehead, Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, David Gilmour and Paul Weller. By Jim Irvin. ...

Todd Rundgren: Todd Moves In Mysterious Ways

Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, May 2004

Where's Todd Rundgren been? Just going to raves, hating the government and making one of his strangest albums yet. ...

Can, Damo Suzuki: Damo Suzuki: The Accidental Anarchist

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 2004

Damo Suzuki is the legendary vocalist with German group Can, but he has been perfecting his unique mode of 'instant composition' all his life. Having ...

Television: Parque De Serralves, Porto

Live Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, August 2004

The group's first ever Portuguese show, in the grounds of Museu de Serralves, Porto's Museum of Modern Art. ...

Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson Presents Smile (Nonesuch CD)

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, October 2004

Three and a half decades after it was abandoned, leaving its creator in a state of nervous collapse, Brian Wilson's troubled masterpiece has finally been ...

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Matt Sweeney: Matt Sweeney & Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Superwolf

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 2005

IT'S STILL DIFFICULT for me to listen to the music of Will Oldham – aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy – without thinking back to when I ...

Ron Geesin, Hamilton Yarns: Friends Meeting House, Brighton

Live Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 2005

THIS RARE live appearance by multi-instrumentalist, composer and poet Ron Geesin — only his second in seven years or so — took place in the ...

Bill Frisell: Richter 858

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2005

RICHTER 858 begins explosively with guitar, violin, viola and cello producing an atonal storm akin to George Crumb's Black Angels. This cedes to slow guitar ...

Steve Reich: Barbican Hall, London

Live Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2005

ANTICIPATION WAS high at Ensemble Modern's UK premiere of Steve Reich's new piece, You Are (Variations), which earned enthusiastic press when first performed in the ...

Van Der Graaf Generator: Electric-Convulsive Therapy

Report and Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, May 2005

ONE OF THE most intense and extreme groups of the '70s progressive era, Van Der Graaf Generator were ever on the verge of collapse. ...

Buck 65: Secret House Against the World

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2005

Though some deplore Buck 65's drift away from Anticon hiphop, Mike Barnes welcomes his blended but more mature songwriting direction. ...

This Heat and Cold Storage: Once upon a time in Brixton

Retrospective by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2005

"A former meat storage room that became This Heat's rehearsal room then an 8-track studio then a 16-track studio then a 24-track studio then a ...

Can: Monster Movie/Soundtracks/Tago Mago/Ege Bamyasi

Review by Mike Barnes, bbc.co.uk, Winter 2005

Can's forays into rock music were ego-free, expressionistic and pared down to the bone... ...

Joanna Newsom: Ys

Review by Mike Barnes, bbc.co.uk, 14 November 2006

Her lyrics may be childlike at times but there's nothing mimsy or fey about them. ...

Bert Jansch: Invisible Jukebox

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 2007

Complete draft of the feature originally published in The Wire 276, Feb 2007 ...

Fern Knight: Music For Witches And Alchemists

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 2007

ON FIRST LISTENING, Music For Witches And Alchemists sounds like a richly melodic, if somewhat lightweight, set occupying a point in the musical spectrum somewhere ...

Peter Hammill

Retrospective and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2007

"I DIDN'T HAVE white tunnels, but I did have the feeling that if I got too tired, which at a certain point might have been ...

Michio Kurihara: Sunset Notes

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2007

ONE OF THE most disarming aspects of Japanese group Ghost is that they make no bones about scattering Prog rock elements throughout their ritualistic psychedelia. ...

Liars: Liars

Review by Mike Barnes, The Guardian, 12 August 2007

LIARS VOCALIST AND GUITARIST Angus Andrew reckons that this is the first album on which he has felt like a proper songwriter and admits he ...

Blacksand: Black Widow Russian Submarine, Medway River (near Strood), UK

Live Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, August 2008

LIFE ON A U475 Hunter-Killer submarine must have been tough, even during the Cold War. ...

Mercury Rev: "Let's try to corral this wild horse, fellas"

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Guardian, 19 September 2008

After years of chaos and in-fighting, Mercury Rev are back on track. They tell Mike Barnes how they reinvented their music — and themselves ...

Kevin Ayers, Soft Machine, The Wilde Flowers: Kevin Ayers: An Interview

Interview by Mike Barnes, unpublished, Fall 2008

2013 NOTE: The interview was ostensibly for the "Hello/Goodbye" feature in MOJO 184 (March 2009), on Ayers's time in Soft Machine, but was opened out ...

Brian Eno

Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, March 2009

He was Roxy Music's synth-basher and the architect of ambient. Now outside-the-box boffin Brian Eno is working with U2 and Coldplay. "Producing is the best paid form ...

Galaxie 500: On Fire

Review by Mike Barnes, bbc.co.uk, 2010

Even on this, their finest album, Galaxie 500's music is secretive and subtle. ...

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Before Today

Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, July 2010

Eleventh album by West Coast former home-recording recluse — now with band — might just be his breakthrough. ...

Captain Beefheart: Booglarized Wonderland

Memoir by Mike Barnes, The Wire, February 2011

IN EVERY PERSON'S experience of listening to music come certain crucial challenges in learning how to actually hear. ...

David Bedford: Albion's Astronaut

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, March 2011

Trained by the European avant garde, British composer David Bedford helped launch Mike Oldfield and Kevin Ayers's pastoral rock into orbit with his cosmically aligned ...

Steve Reich: Musicians, Composers and Artists pay tribute

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Guardian, 5 May 2011

STEVE REICH is a major influence on today's musicians, artists and film-makers. As the Barbican pays tribute, we ask some of them why – and ...

White Denim: D

Review by Mike Barnes, bbc.co.uk, 24 May 2011

A hard-to-resist fourth LP from the Texan odd-rockers. ...

Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat: Bill Wells: "I've more in common with indie"

Report and Interview by Mike Barnes, The Guardian, 30 June 2011

Snubbed by Scotland's jazz scene, guitar virtuoso Bill Wells has teamed up with ex-Arab Strap man Aidan Moffat for a panoramic meditation on life and ...

Real Estate: Days (Domino)

Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, November 2011

REAL ESTATE'S self-titled 2009 debut album was recorded at home — some of it on borrowed equipment — but Days is a marked improvement on ...

James Chance & the Contortions: Hello Goodbye: James Chance & the Contortions

Interview by Mike Barnes, MOJO, February 2013

Start: punk jazzers picked for their looks. End: the boss alienated them ail... ...

Ariel Pink: Pom Pom

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 2014

"AM I blowing this guy's mind with this bullshit?" Ariel Pink joked to his friend during an Invisible Jukebox interview (The Wire 309), held at ...

Yo La Tengo: Stuff Like That There

Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, September 2015

THE VIDEO for 'Ohm' from Yo la Tengo's last album, 2013's Fade, is an animation which starts with a teacher writing a question on the ...

John Foxx: London Overgrown (Metamatic)

Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 2015

FASCINATED BY ruin and dereliction as a result of temporal processes, John Foxx has been filming, photographing and exploring London with what you could call ...

The Dead Weather: Dodge and Burn

Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, November 2015

The barometer drops on the third from Jack White's supergroup. ...

Lee Hazlewood: Wyndham Wallace: Lee, Myself And I – Inside The Very Special World Of Lee Hazlewood (Jawbone)

Book Review by Mike Barnes, The Wire, November 2015

WYNDAM WALLACE was a publicist for the City Slang record label in the late 1990s and our paths crossed many times. My memory of him ...

Nadia Reid: Listen To Formation, Look For The Signs

Review by Mike Barnes, MOJO, January 2016

Inspired debut by a young New Zealand singer-songwriter you'll feel you've known forever. ...

Dagmar Krause: Invisible Jukebox: Dagmar Krause

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, December 2016

Each month we play a musician or group a series of records which they are asked to comment on — with no prior knowledge of ...

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