Phil Sutcliffe
Phil Sutcliffe has been writing mostly about music since he went freelance in 1974 after serving an old-fashioned journalistic apprenticeship on the Newcaste Evening Chronicle. Youth illuminated by Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan fandom, later years through to now by interviewing Paul Kossoff, Gentle Giant, the Angelic Upstarts, Joan Armatrading, AC/DC, The Police, Kate Bush, Nik Kershaw, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, Marc Cohn, Paul McCartney, Oasis, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Radiohead, Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton, Depeche Mode, Norah Jones, Peter Green, Nick Cave and so on as below for Sounds, Smash Hits, The Face, The Northern Echo, Q, Blender, the Los Angeles Times and, still best of all, Mojo. Never did meet a musician without a tale to tell and the means to do it. So far, so good.
Contact philsutcliffe47@gmail.com
548 articles
List of articles in the library
Hot Chocolate: Top Hat, Spennymoor, County Durham
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 July 1975
REVIEWING ACTS in nightclubs rather than the usual concert hall is really something else. So much is happening, the band has to work really hard ...
Art Garfunkel: Breakaway (CBS 86002) 37 mins.
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 October 1975
HAVE S AND/or G ever produced a real bummer? Of course not and Art's latest could never be anything but one of the loveliest LPs ...
Back Street Crawler, Paul Kossoff: Back from the Dead: Paul Kossoff
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 November 1975
Despite that painful appearance on the OGWT, Paul Kossoff is Alive and as Well as anyone could be after being at death' s door ...
Queen: A Night At The Opera (EMI) *****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 20 November 1975
AS IMPLIED BY THEIR 'Bohemian' extravaganza Queen have really gone for it, the meisterwerk, the magnum opus even. ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 November 1975
'IN THE street, boy! That's where the action is. Where the wheelers and the dealers and the hustlers and the crooks get the suckers.' ...
Back Street Crawler: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 December 1975
IT WAS a fairly complete emotional experience watching Back Street Crawler at the City Hall. You wondered where performance ended and real life began. Was ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 December 1975
YOU REMEMBER how Barbarella nearly died on the Excessive Pleasure Machine? Well, Kokomo almost finished me off the same way the other night. Their whole ...
Queen: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 December 1975
‘BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY’ as a single is astonishingly close to a true expression of the character of Queen in any setting. ...
J. Geils Band: The J. Geils Band: A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 3 January 1976
PETER WOLF, singer with the J. Geils Band, has a reputation as a wildman on stage and a roughhouse interviewee off it. ...
Boombaya, Jive Bombers, Roogalator: Boombaya, Roogalator, Jive Bombers: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 January 1976
Join the working band's club ...
Country Joe & The Fish: Country Joe McDonald: Shed A Tear In Your Beer For The Fish Cheer
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 February 1976
COUNTRY JOE said: "I'd like to make some money, buy a Cadillac, make pop music as in popular, radio rock 'n' roll." ...
Kokomo: Grown Some Funk Of Our Own
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 February 1976
THE SUBDUED shufflings of a hotel chambermaid were gradually coaxing Alan Spenner, Kokomo's friendly grizzly bear of a bass payer, out of sweet slumber. ...
Sailor: Down The Docks: Sailor
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 February 1976
"PEOPLE IN LOVE," sings Georg Kajanus and the other Sailors sing 'Aa-aaah' as who wouldn't at such nice, cosy thought? ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 February 1976
TENSE SI SI: That's just to prove I speaka da lingo but it's also true about my interview with 10cc. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 February 1976
THE FOLLOWING should be read with a Scouse accent: "I suppose Clancy are treading water and yet looking at the horizon waiting for the great ...
10cc: Herr Creme Gives You Bounce
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 28 February 1976
10cc: Hammersmith Odeon, London ...
Alan White: Ramshackled (Atlantic) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 28 February 1976
THIRD IN the series and I'll lay odds there's not going to be another Yes solo that sounds less like the parent band. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 March 1976
If you look like this … when you really feel like this…then your name is Thijs Van Leer and you’re trying hard to make the ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 March 1976
THE PACKED house in the weirdly constructed union hall seemed undistressed by Jan Akkerman's absence and were even so gracious as to applaud the new ...
Rick Wakeman: No Earthly Connection
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 March 1976
ELTON JOHN put the honky Chateau de Herouville on the map but Rick Wakeman and the English Rock Ensemble put it on the label of ...
Stackridge: Mr. Mick (Rocket, white label) *****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 March 1976
Presenting Mutter Slater ...
Robin Trower: A Tower Of Power
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 March 1976
Robin Trower: Empire Pool, Wembley ...
Stackridge: Presenting Mutter Slater
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 20 March 1976
Well this is really a feature on Stackridge but even they admit that Mutter's became their front man. Still they're all getting behind a new ...
Obituary by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 March 1976
WHAT CAN you do but grieve. Just grieve. Too close to the edge, always. Pain, so much pain, so much of the time it seemed. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 3 April 1976
IT WAS A MONDAY like that. My train back to the big city was late so I was late for my interview with Patrick Moraz ...
Bill Bruford, Genesis: Bill Bruford: Have Drum Will Travel
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 April 1976
IT WAS IN the unlikely setting of the Una Billings School of Dancing's basement that the partnership which will be titillating the timpani of drum ...
National Health: Carrying The Flag Close To The Edge
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 April 1976
"THERE'S NO way of encapsulating higher ideas except by some kind of artistic experience," stated Mont Campbell, ex-Egg, current National Health, with fervent sobriety. ...
Rick Wakeman and the English Rock Ensemble: No Earthly Connection (A&M)****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 April 1976
HERE WE are again and I'm not at all sure that reviewing an album twice is a good idea even if first time round was ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 May 1976
Well, we've had the wheel, sliced bread, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and now Big Phil Sutcliffe's copped the newie...Yep, it's Gentle Giant's eighth ...
Donna Summer: "Love to interview you, baby"
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 May 1976
A serious, valid and from the heart feature in the course of which Phil Sutcliffe had 93 orgasms... ...
Jethro Tull: Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 May 1976
ON A quick perusal of the field I reckon Ian Anderson is the most articulate rocker I've ever encountered. In fact hearing him talk is ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 May 1976
ROY WOOD IS: the wild man of Brummio who terrifies your parents whenever he's let loose on the antiseptic air-time of Top Of The Pops ...
Baker-Gurvitz Army:Hearts On Fire
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 May 1976
THEY FINALLY got there, the Baker-Gurvitz Army, an unlikely gang of ornery hombres, always looked as though it would be goddam exciting if they sorted ...
Curved Air:The Best Of Curved Air*****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 May 1976
NOW IT can't be dynamic good style to start with parentheses can it (but when I put those five stars there I obviously mean if ...
Back Street Crawler: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 May 1976
IF YOU want a nice, peaceful night's rock 'n' roll don't go anywhere near a Back Street Crawler gig. It's more like an on the ...
Back Street Crawler: Back Street Fighters: Back Street Crawler
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 May 1976
IF YOUR tastes run to nasty, sweat-and-gore boxing as well as nasty-hot rock, the ringside seat for you in the next couple of months should ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 May 1976
NOW I'VE been told by no less a figure than our editor that this is a mighty fine album and I know it means kneecap ...
Jeff Beck: Return Of The Lone Axe Hero
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 May 1976
Jeff Beck: The Roundhouse, London ...
Stomu Yamashta: The Story of 'Go'
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 June 1976
WITHIN a couple of minutes of meeting Stomu Yamashta I was so engrossed in discussing with him my fears that Muhammad Ali will get his ...
Average White Band, Kokomo: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 June 1976
THIS WAS one double bill I just had to see. I mean rock is so find these days and there are good concerts every week ...
Back Street Crawler: Second Street (Atlantic) 38 mins ****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 June 1976
THIS IS the last recording Paul Kossoff ever made which means that commenting on it is rather like reviewing a gravestone. You just don't. But ...
Cream, Ginger Baker, Graham Bond: Ginger Baker: New Skins For The Old Ceremony
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 June 1976
PHIL SUTCLIFFE takes a walk down memory lane with GINGER BAKER, drummer, sportsman and fellow piles sufferer. ...
Joe Cocker: Stingray (A&M) *****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 June 1976
IT SPEAKS VOLUMES that whatever the ups and downs of Joe Cocker's personal life when he gets back in the studio or out on the ...
Natalie Cole: Natalie (Capitol) 35 mins ***
Essay by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 June 1976
IF YOU get right down to it I suppose pop/rock is composed of a set of quite different musical idioms within which almost everyone sounds ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 June 1976
"There he goes looking like a cross between Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen," jested Martin Belmont, Rumour guitarist. 'He' was GRAHAM PARKER on his way ...
Michael Chapman: Wine, One Woman And The Loony Yokel: A Tale of a Yorkshireman, Michael Chapman
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 June 1976
MICHAEL CHAPMAN was revelling in the afterglow of Decca’s success with John Miles. The company had got really interested in promoting his new album, flown ...
Steve Winwood, Stomu Yamashta: Yamashta, Winwood, Shrieve: Go (Island)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 June 1976
THE THEORY of it could be a blueprint for the grossmost excess of pretentious rock – a fusion of cultures through music yet, Japanese, German, ...
Gary Wright, Peter Frampton, Yes: Yes: The Biggest Gig In The Entire History Of The World
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 June 1976
Bicentennialand and rock's favourite vegetarians take Phil Sutcliffe by storm. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 July 1976
CURVED AIR have never made a bad album and they aren't about to start now, though that isn't to say they're predictable. ...
Hawkwind: Robert Calvert : How To Pick Up Girls In Paris
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 July 1976
The Calvert MethodRobert Calvert, former Hawkwind person, playwright, raconteur, bon viveur, joyeux noel, has just returned from an enjoyable and instructive visit to Paris at ...
Curved Air: Groping for Air: Sonja Kristina
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 July 1976
SONJA KRISTINA stepped out of the dressing room after the gig at Dunstable in her lace stage dress that doesn’t look as though it’s really ...
Graham Central Station: Mirror
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 July 1976
IT’S NOT every pop lyric writer who can slot in R.I. advice like "Then you should open it up to Matthew 24" and "Look in ...
AC/DC: More Songs about Humping and Booze
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 July 1976
'You get nothin for nothin'/Who can you trust?/We got what you want/You got the lust/You want blood – you got it . ...
Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading (A&M)*****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 31 July 1976
THE RECORD deck grunts and clicks, the turntable sidles to a halt and polysyllabic analysis should be flowing from the critic's pen but I'd just ...
Joan Armatrading: I Second that Emotion: Joan Armatrading
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 August 1976
LOVER JOAN? Old pal Joan? Sister Joan? Who are you, intimate and mysterious lady? Why do your songs flow in my bloodstream? I got you ...
Blood, Sweat & Tears: Blood Sweat and Tears: More Than Ever (CBS) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 August 1976
BST WERE one of the key bands of the late 60s who began to give rock a respectable musicianly image and yet I've always had ...
Split Enz: Mental Notes (Chrysalis) ****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 August 1976
ME MAM says they're not as good as 10cc and "that group who did the operetta?" "Queen?" "Yes and that one about Ground Control to ...
AC/DC: The Dirtiest Story Ever Told
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 28 August 1976
An everyday story of rape, pillage, runny noses, drunken orgies, broken wind, assaults on and by police, sweat-soaked Luncheon Vouchers, and the 279-pound lady who ...
Sutherland Brothers and Quiver in Newcastle
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 October 1976
IT CAME to me in a vision about half way through the long set the Suther Quivs have put together for their first headline tour ...
Robin Trower: Long Misty Days (Chrysalis)****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 October 1976
THERE'S AN Edgar Allen Poe story in which a small boat is caught up in a maelstrom, a King Kong among whirlpools, spins around its ...
Linda Lewis: Newcastle Polytechnic
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 16 October 1976
FROM KID Barton's interview with Ms Lewis last week it would seem that her current tour is the latest defiant gesture in a running debate ...
Steve Hillage: The Axeman Of Love
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 23 October 1976
Steve Hillage: City Hall, Newcastle ...
National Health: Newcastle University
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 October 1976
WATCHING rock and roll these last few weeks I just feel better and better. The long standing groan about the dearth of new bands and ...
Racing Cars at Newcastle Polytechnic
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 October 1976
A MUSICIAN was telling me the other day that he loved to start a set with an instrumental to prove how good his band was ...
Eric Burdon: The Eric Burdon Band: The Mayfair, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 November 1976
IF MEL BUSH, who is presenting Santana at Wembley Pool this weekend, had been present for the opening ten minutes of his support act's tour ...
National Health Warning: Touring Can Make You Broke
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 November 1976
AFTER National Health's soundcheck singer Amanda Parsons accosted keyboardist Dave Stewart thusly: "Have you got any money? It cost us £16 in petrol to get ...
Steve Hillage: Stevie's Wonders
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 20 November 1976
"I WON'T PLAY if they don't play," said Steve Hillage and a French girl dressed as a clown and holding a saxophone looked pleased, tour ...
The George Hatcher Band: Dry Run (United Artists) *****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 November 1976
YOU PICK up on a band at one of their early gigs, rave review them, interview them and hustle space for them in the paper. ...
Joe Cocker: Live In LA (Cube) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 December 1976
THIS ALBUM opens with the unctuous voice of the compere saying "Thank you for your patience ladies and gentlemen" which has a certain irony as ...
Elton John: The Real Elton John Stands Up - ‘Hoorah!’
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 December 1976
ELTON JOHN is 29. So am I. We both wear glasses and they make his eyes look pink and mine look piggily smaller than they ...
Split Enz: The Enz justify the means
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 25 December 1976
Noel Crombie (he’s the one with the cute coiffure) reveals the horrors of shopping in Sainsbury’s…and much more ...
Last Exit (UK), Sting: Making It: Last Exit
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 January 1977
Any band with fire in its belly sooner or later has to gamble on that make-or-break trip to London. This is an account of how ...
Gentle Giant: Live — Playing The Fool (Chrysalis)****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 January 1977
YES, FOR the first time on record you too can hear Gentle Giant play a bum note! In fact not one but several, together with ...
Jethro Tull: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 February 1977
YOU KNOW how supergroups are supposed to open the show with the '1812 Overture' complete with real facsimile nineteenth-century Muscovite cannon and a battallion of ...
Steve Hillage: Steve Haulage and the Trucking Company
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 February 1977
"Steve Miller didja say? Aw, Steve Pillage. No? Village?..." OK, we surrender. These Yanks will never get it right. So this is the story of ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 March 1977
THIS IS the solid professional way to introduce this review...Jade Warrior, that is Tony Duhig and Jon Field, are one of the finest unrecognised British ...
Michael Chapman: Michael Chapman Lived Here 1968-72 (CUBE)****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 23 April 1977
ON THE REAR of the sleeve is a faded brown and sepia pic of Michael Chapman sat on a bed alone, nothing but a guitar ...
Judas Priest: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 May 1977
KING RIFF rools okay? The two coachloads from Dundee said "Yeaah". The Cop crowd joined saying "okay". But the nice thing about being seen to ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 May 1977
"TURN OFF the music – we want to play," R the bassist yelled at the DJ and, before you had time to chuckle at the ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 11 June 1977
THERE'S NOT much doubt that Elkie Brooks is going to be around for ever and ever. Elkie's a singer, simply as that. But there's still ...
10cc: New 10cc: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 11 June 1977
10CC WERE excellent. This is news? No, though in my experience they have never been the apostles of mechanical perfection sneered at by some critics. ...
Ian Hunter: Mecca Mayfair, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 June 1977
IAN HUNTER was back. ...
Penetration: Anarchy In County Durham
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 June 1977
MICK JONES of the Clash, leading philosophers of the New Wave, has said that he couldn't play but for the vacuum-pack pressures of the tower ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills And Nash: CSN
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 July 1977
THE TRUTH is you could put the sum of my knowledge of CSN severally and separately on your thumbnail and still have room for a ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 July 1977
GO ON, GUESS how the first Yes album for three years begins. I tell you, you haven't got a hope. ...
Yes: Credibility Regained (Or: Rich Superstars Make Good Album sensation!)
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 16 July 1977
GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING: this feature does not contain any references to "punk’ or ‘new wave" ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 July 1977
THE TIME: just before the gig at Birmingham University. In that husky South Carolina accent George Hatcher was telling me about the band: "It will ...
The Movies (UK): The Movies: Double A
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 August 1977
BEND A CASUAL ear to The Movies and you might almost think they were easy listening, gentle on your mind, treacle on your brain. A ...
Gentle Giant: The Missing Piece
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 August 1977
GENTLE GIANT crave recognition in their homeland with a longing which at times borders on the pathetic. For all their success in the States and ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 August 1977
THIS IS a double album of many distinctions. For instance, I've never known a record feature the line 'have a cup of tea' so often. ...
Chris De Burgh: At The End Of A Perfect Day
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 3 September 1977
YOU'D EXPECT sensitive singer-songwriters to be well-served by the quiet decorum of the studio where every nuance can be polished to perfection. But it doesn't ...
Doobie Brothers: Livin' On The Fault Line
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 September 1977
WHATEVER HAPPENED to the Doobie Brothers? I've often wondered. And this new album is no help. None of them play on it and the sleeve ...
Joan Armatrading: Show Some Emotion
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 September 1977
AAAAAH, JOAN, Shall I compare thee to a summer rose? Not just now, but how about 'The Summertime Blues'? At least Eddie Cochran is something ...
Peter Gabriel, Nona Hendryx: Peter Gabriel, Nona Hendrix: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 September 1977
PETER GABRIEL used to the the guy behind the make-up, behind the monster-mask, behind the smokescreen; an original performer, a one-man spectacular. I admired but ...
Peter Gabriel: Newcastle Welcomes Peter Gabriel
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 October 1977
In the car park round the corner from Newcastle City Hall a bootleg baker was trafficking in bread buns from the back of an unmarked ...
Steve Hillage: Motivation Radio
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 October 1977
When a guy sings to you "we've all been born together in this special place and time to raise the world," where does your humble ...
Climax Blues Band: The Climax Blues Band: Live in Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 October 1977
THE CLIMAX Blues Band are fab. Not a profound remark, I know, but it needs saying because their fate in this country has nearly always ...
Racing Cars: Mayfair, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 October 1977
UNFORTUNATELY I'VE always missed Lowell George and Paul Barrere live so I can't tell you with real authenticity that Graham Williams and 'Alice' Enniss of ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 October 1977
AC/DC ARE A 4-letter word band. If you don't like, them and some misadventure elbows you into their firing line the foulest oaths would be ...
Chris Spedding: Durham University, Durham
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 October 1977
TALK ABOUT a game of two halves. This was the one where Liverpool and Man Utd battle out a midfield stalemate until the interval then ...
Jess Roden: The Player Not The Game
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 October 1977
NOW I ALWAYS thought good music was good music but this album is a puzzler. You see I like it at midnight and at half ...
AC/DC: Sex, Snot, Sweat and School Kids
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 October 1977
AC/DC: The Mayfair, Newcastle ...
Steve Hillage: Hippie Axeman In Jodrell Bank Raid
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 October 1977
The new Steve Hillage: The Man Who Gets Things Done. ...
Rick Wakeman: Rick Wakeman's Criminal Record
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 October 1977
FOR RICK Wakeman, Criminal Record is obviously the outcome of some in-depth self-criticism. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 October 1977
GRUNTINESS, that's what it comes down to. ...
The Runaways: Newcastle City Hall
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 November 1977
JOAN JETT is gorgeous. Vicki Blue is delectable. Lita Ford is the American Pie smile backed by the American Dream ass. And Sandy West is ...
Michael Chapman: The Man Who Hated Mornings
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 November 1977
MICHAEL CHAPMAN is a ruminative sort of talent. ...
The Jam: THIS Is The Modern World
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 November 1977
The Jam: The Mayfair, Newcastle ...
The Enid: Why Are These Men Facing The Wrong Way?
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 December 1977
IT'S WELL over a year now since I last annexed a piece of this publication to warn you that the Enid, oddball neo-classical romancers, were ...
Uriah Heep: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 December 1977
Heep hordes go crazy, critic stays unmoved ...
Split Enz: The Rats Are Crawling Up My Back - And Other Seasonal Thoughts Courtesy Of SPLIT ENZ
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 December 1977
DIZRYTHMIA. "We got the album title from a pamphlet in a plane. It happened to mention the medical name for jet-lag circadia disrhythmia. It means ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 31 December 1977
I walked through Carlisle in a mild drizzle musing on some crafted phrases about the castle, the airy market-town streets, the cool shower of country ...
Television: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1978
I mean, it can’t be that difficult to come up with 800 words on any gig. A beginning, a middle and an end with a ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 January 1978
COULD IT be that protest singers are about to make a comeback? It makes sense – after the glitter and the head-banging punk came out ...
Penetration: The Canteen, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 4 February 1978
PENETRATION MIGHT have been a flicker of inspiration, a couple of months of excitement refracted through a bunch of provincial Johnny Rotten fans. Might have ...
Talking Heads: Newcastle Poly, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 4 February 1978
TALKING HEADS are one of those bands who are so good you have to be careful to avoid falling into telling the world they are ...
Bill Bruford: Your Friendly Neighbourhood Rock Star
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 11 February 1978
"I FEEL sometimes as though they're about to stick my head on a spike and display it outside the Tower Of London for people to ...
Split Enz: Town Hall, Middlesbrough
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 11 February 1978
OK, IT'S only two months since I last covered Split Enz at this very same Middlesbrough Town Hall. Deja revu? No way. In December they ...
Be-Bop Deluxe: Be Bop Deluxe: City Hall, Newcastke
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 February 1978
WHEN IT'S your seventh try at an intro it gets down to saying it's your seventh try at an intro. You see. Bill Nelson coined ...
Angelic Upstarts: Bolingbroke Hall, South Shields
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 4 March 1978
I WAS starting to think the whole thing had gone down the toilet. All the energy and the anger. Suddenly smart suits and cash register ...
Punishment Of Luxury: Spectra recording studio, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 March 1978
THIS IS an emergency. Police, the local councils, students and hell-bent droogs who throw glasses have been laying siege to rock in the North-East. And ...
Angelic Upstarts: What's Going On 'Ere, Then?
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 April 1978
"WHO KILLED Liddle?" On stage a tall young man wearing a police hat, white shirt, trousers and jackboots is down on his hands and knees. ...
Hot Chocolate: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 April 1978
IT WAS the funniest ending to a concert I've ever seen. Hot Chocolate said their goodbyes, walked off and, I imagine, stood in the wings ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 May 1978
ANGUS YOUNG has got himself some new front teeth. An elegant row of even ivories that wouldn't look out of place in the mouth of ...
Punishment of Luxury: Can Success Save These Men From a Season at Butlins?
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 13 May 1978
PHIL SUTCLIFFE hopes so. Punishment of Luxury hope so even more ...
Don McLean: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 May 1978
ALTHOUGH HE has become generally underrated because 'American Pie' and 'Vincent' in their different ways were songs impossible to top, to me Don McLean has ...
Penetration: Abcess Makes The Heart Grow Fonder
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 May 1978
EVERYONE was smiling, feeling rosie the way you do, when a wedding service draws to a close. Pauline, singer with Penetration, and her long-time sweetheart ...
Ian Gillan Band: Mayfair, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 June 1978
WHEN YOU'VE seen one old Deep Purple singer you haven't seen them all. It happened that a month ago I reviewed David Coverdale putting his ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 June 1978
AFTER THE show there was a photo session in a back-room of the theatre. Randy walked in and, since there was no other reason for ...
David Bowie: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 June 1978
EVERYBODY I spoke to was complaining. A front row of seats had been sold then removed to fit the stage extension in. The roadies thought ...
Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Graham Parker, Joan Armatrading: Blackbushe Festival - Nice To See Ya, Bob
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 July 1978
...OR RATHER, IT would have been, but at least we heard him and that made the hassles worthwhile, reports our survivor of the million dollar ...
Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food (Sire)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, September 1978
SUCH A CIVILISED BAND. You may think this is no way to run a review but I'm going to quote all the words to one ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 16 September 1978
I UNDERSTAND it has remained OK to like Genesis (which I don't) but it's not OK to like Yes (which I do though no longer ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 September 1978
DESPITE ALL your Weather Reports, Coreas, Dukes and such, Brand X remain the sum total of British jazz-rock to reach what might reasonably be termed ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 September 1978
A CAMEL Caravan from Canterbury (two down, three across). You couldn't fit the solution into The Times crossword though. It took an hour-and-a-half to play ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 September 1978
THIS GENTLE Giant album could present you with some difficulty and even expense. The problem is that you'll have to set your record player up ...
Joan Armatrading: To The Limit
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 September 1978
I'M UNDER strict instructions to make this Joan Armatrading review a little less like a love letter than its predecessors. Well it's hard you know ...
Joan Armatrading: Perrier Water and Privacy: Joan Armatrading
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 October 1978
"LOOOK this way pet, wooood you dear," said the photographer in a voice fusing Andy Stewart and Larry Grayson. "Please pet". Fussing, fussing. ...
Weather Report: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 October 1978
IF YOU spent an evening in the company of some guys and the only word they uttered was 'Goodbye' you might well think they were ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 11 November 1978
WHEN WHITESNAKE first hit the road six months ago (with Brian Johnston on keyboards) the generally buoyant Coverdale let out one cry of pain to ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 November 1978
NOT YER average roots of mystic religion jazz-fusion ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 November 1978
IT WILL probably come as a surprise to most people who saw them during their early months last year, but The Police have finally come ...
The Clash: Town Hall, Middlesbrough
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 25 November 1978
PERSPECTIVE. THE Clash are heroes (but not mine). ...
Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 December 1978
THE OLD Testament followed by the New (also written some while ago you will recall). For once there was hardly a vacant seat by half ...
National Health: Of Queues And Cures (Charly CRL 5010) ***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 December 1978
CHURN, GRIND, hubble-bubble. Merde alors. I ask my brain to supply me with words to describe the instrumental music of National Health and that's all ...
Penetration, Punishment Of Luxury: Penetration/Punishment Of Luxury/Neon: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 January 1979
THIS WAS A night to crush Cleveland, bugger Bloomington and give the arse to Akron. North British talent ruled, and it was OK. Well, no, ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 January 1979
THIS COULD have been very embarrassing if you lot had caught me at it. I was cruising round the kitchen introducing my ears to this ...
Stiff Little Fingers: Breakout in Newport: Stiff Little Fingers
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 3 March 1979
All the action of life at the top as Phrantic Phil Sutcliffe, our man with his finger on the pop pulse, goes "on the road" ...
Bad Company: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 March 1979
I WALKED into a pub before the gig and... go on, guess what was playing on the jukebox, 'Alright Now'. Eh? You don't get the ...
Bram Tchaikovsky, Uriah Heep: Uriah Heep/Bram Tchaikovsky: City Hall, Newcastle
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 March 1979
HEEP AND Tchaikovsky? All I expected to want to write was a letter to the civic authorities asking them to put Andrex instead of Bronco ...
Graham Parker: You Can't Be Too Strong
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 March 1979
THE HOSPITALITY room backstage at Newcastle City Hall welcomed me like a cold echo. A table load of cellophane-covered salads and the muffled sound of ...
The Rezillos: Can’t Stand The (Other) Rezillos
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 April 1979
A Family At War. A live album from a dead band. Or, as our contribution to Einstein’s centenary, PHIL SUTCLIFFE proves that 3+2=0, ...
Daevid Allen: N'Existe Pas! (Charly)***½/ Banana Moon (Charly)***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 April 1979
YOUR PLANET Gong correspondent reporting again, and with better news than of late, Both of these albums have much to commend them to Daevid Allen ...
Penetration: Movement Is The Message
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 May 1979
THE PENETRATION EXPLANATION BY PHIL SUTCLIFFE ...
Ted Nugent: Divorce, Ted Nugent Style
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 May 1979
TED NUGENT (Hammersmith Odeon, second house): "There can come a time when you baby turns to you and says 'I'm splittin'' and you're so sad ...
The Mekons: Songs of Innocence and Experience
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 May 1979
I BEAT ON the front door of a huge, decaying terrace house in Leeds. No response. Tried the bell but it was dead. Rattled the ...
EMI: Saturday Night Beneath The Corporate Umbrella
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 June 1979
MUSIC, FILMS TV, HOTELS, RESTAURANTS, MEDICINE, WEAPONS...HOW A GIANT RECORD COMPANY NOW EXTENDS INTO EVERY AREA OF LIFE – AND DEATH. ...
Rick Wakeman: Rhapsodies (A&M)***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 June 1979
A MAN of honour is old Rick. Some three years ago when he was preparing No Earthly Connection he said he would like to do ...
The Cramps, Bobby Henry, The Police: Police, Cramps, Bobby Henry: Odeon, Edinburgh
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 June 1979
VALUE-ADDED. A three band tour. Expenses shared, exposure for the musician, extras for the audience. A good thing. Which is at least one reason why ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 16 June 1979
...but instead you'll be relieved there are no Police puns in this headline ...
Herman Brood, Nina Hagen: Herman Brood: The Further Adventures of Herman and Nina
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 July 1979
'It's a magic, fantastic, plastic fireball/makes you strong for life/makes you stumble and fall/they're gonna call you names you never heard before/they got you comin' ...
Johnny "Guitar" Watson: Johnny 'Guitar' Watson: What The Hell Is This ****½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 July 1979
THIS IS a real mutha for ya, from the first seconds of the title track which go for your vitals with a rivet gun of ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 July 1979
AM I CRAZY or am I in the UK? Strolling through a discount record store I look to the right and there's Blondie's Parallel Lines ...
Motörhead: A State of Semioutofitness — 12 Hours on the Road with Motorhead
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 July 1979
MOTORHEAD'S DRUMMER Phil Taylor was bent double with his backside pressed against a window, his head down by his knees, his flies open and his ...
Duffo, The Lurkers, Tubeway Army: Beggars Banquet: Laughing All The Way To The Banquet
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 July 1979
FROM SECOND-HAND RECORD SHOP TO NUMBER ONE SINGLE AND ALBUM. THE STORY OF BEGGARS BANQUET ...
Herman Brood: Herman Brood And His Wild Romance (Ariola) ****½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 21 July 1979
THE ONLY thing against Herman Brood is his nationality. The world may simply not believe that a Dutchman can sing filthy English-language rock like this ...
AC/DC: More Songs About Humping And Booze
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 28 July 1979
HAVE AC/DC GONE DISCO? 'NAH' SNARLS PHILTHY PHIL SUTCLIFFE ...
Saxon: Big Teasers From Barnsley: Saxon
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 August 1979
HERE'S A challenge to sort the men from the boys. From new "grassroots English heavy metal band" Saxon to the latest American skullcrushers to go ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 August 1979
JOAN BAEZ is 38 and has a lifetime of quotable quotes at her disposal from her plaintive remark to an audience in 1961: "The world ...
Led Zeppelin: Knebworth Park, Hertfordshire
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 August 1979
WELL. I quite like them. ...
XTC: Drums And Wires (Virgin)****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 18 August 1979
I'M WELL qualified to write about XTC. I don't understand them at all. I prove that publicly last autumn when a couple of days in ...
Genya Ravan: …And I Mean It! (20th Century Fox import) ****½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1 September 1979
DON'T EVEN let it cross your mind that I'm influenced by Ms Ravan being the only artist who's given me a great big kiss at ...
Faulty Towers: Miles Copeland’s New Wave
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 September 1979
MILES COPELAND is prone to saying things like "cracking America and the world is a big job and we're going to have to work really ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: In Aberdeen...No-one Can Hear You Scream
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 September 1979
THE GEEZER standing next to me in the urinal said "Hey, have you heard the rumour? Two of the Banshees have run off. They're not ...
Penetration: Coming Up For Air (Virgin) ****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 September 1979
UP! THAT'S what Penetration are. Such stimulation. A Japanese masseuse on speciality-of-the-house rates could hardly have tickled more of a tingle into every nerve-end from ...
The Cure: Capitol Theatre, Aberdeen
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 September 1979
THIS GIG with The Cure supposedly supporting the Banshees had a somewhat surprising outcome which you'll have read about last week in this journal but ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: "Humourless? Us?" - Siouxsie & the Banshees
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 September 1979
"...Thy Kingdom come / They will be done / In Earth as it is in Heaven / Amen... Knock, knocking on Heaven’s door / Let ...
Fashiøn: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 September 1979
PRODUCT PERFECT they called their album and the song of that name was in their set at the Odeon when they supported the Police. But ...
Gary Numan: Do Sheep Dream Of Electric Androids? The Gary Numan Enigma
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 October 1979
DATA: Gary Numan found his stage name in the Yellow Pages. The original Numan is a vendor of domestic appliances. In German "nu" means "now' ...
The Kinks: Low Budget (Arista)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 6 October 1979
FOR OLD codgers like me it’s very difficult to pin down reactions to albums by old codgers like the Kinks. These we have loved. ...
Whitesnake: You may not believe it, but... these men are bathing in innuendo
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 20 October 1979
PHIL SUTCLIFFE STRUTS LIKE A PEACOCK TOWARDS WHITESNAKE AND ASKS "ARE YOU A BUNCH OF LIBIDINOUS HALF-WITS?" ...
The Ruts: Tears On The Notepad
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 October 1979
EVEN FOR THE wacky, fun-loving RUTS there comes a time for serious reckoning, a time to pour it all out, a time for... ...
Girlschool: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's … Girlschool
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 3 November 1979
I MET GIRLSCHOOL in a pub called the Leather Bottle, which was appropriate because leather is what they wear and bottle is what they've got ...
Poison Girls: Old People Can Be Rebels Too: Poison Girls
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 November 1979
LOOK AT Poison Girls on stage and you see a straight line of straight faces, clothes all red and black in front of a red ...
The Cure: Durham University, Durham
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 8 December 1979
Even the bad times are good ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 December 1979
Bleaking out is a very modern desire, reveals Phil Sutcliffe ...
Stevie Wonder: Hotter Than July
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 1980
IF THIS ALBUM had been issued between Fulfillingness First Finale and Songs In The Key Of Life I think I'd still have given it four ...
Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Laughter (Stiff)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, January 1980
I'M IN the mood for superlative hyperbole (oh – and love). I may have caught some flak from the Arts Page faction when in a ...
Chaka Khan, Rufus: Rufus and Chaka Khan: Masterjam (MCA MCG4007) **½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 January 1980
CHAKA KHAN is known for the biggest mouth and the funkiest abdominal scar on the soul scene and what's more there was a time when ...
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 January 1980
Love is like oxygen ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 January 1980
LONDON CALLING? It hardly covers the situation. Every is-or-was punk fan in the country must be quietly slavering to see the Clash film and apprehensive ...
Sector 27, This Heat: This Heat, Sector 27: Ritzy Cinema, Brixton, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 January 1980
I DONT KNOW what This Heat's vision of an ideal setting for their singular brand of music would be but I'd guess the Brixton Ritzy ...
Alicia Bridges: Play It As It Lays (Polydor Import)**
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 January 1980
THE CREDITS for this album run to twenty separate headings including a small army of sidemen and numerous listings in particular for Ms Bridges and ...
Blondie: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 January 1980
JUST LOOKING ...
Dexys Midnight Runners, Geno Washington: The Dexedrine Gang: Dexy's Midnight Runners
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 January 1980
BY THE TIME I'd reached the counter, I'd forgotten it. "What was it again?" I called over to the Dexy's tables. They said "Five teas ...
The Pretenders: 'The Night I Played Top Of The Pops With No Underwear!'
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 January 1980
I CAN TELL you I was worried about this Pretenders thing. I thought they'd be too much for me – well, not so much 'they' ...
Annette Peacock: The Venue, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 February 1980
ANNETTE PEACOCK is a lovely enigma. Once in a while she emerges from obscurity to titillate her panting public with her possibilities and her perversities... ...
Neil Diamond: September Morn (CBS)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 February 1980
THAT SLIGHT tremor in his voice tells you that Neil Diamond is emotional and vulnerable. Those bass notes tell you he's manly and he can ...
Iggy Pop, The Psychedelic Furs: Iggy Pop/Psychedelic Furs: Friars, Aylesbury
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 February 1980
THREE BANDS shaped up as good value but that wasn't all. There was an unannounced surprise star guest – all the way from Vegas let's ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 February 1980
YOU NEED a publicist? Look no further than Dean Klevatt, a young man who makes Phineas T Barnum himself look like a shrinking violet. ...
Iggy Pop: I Can't Stand to be Alone
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 23 February 1980
TO OPEN A DOOR and find Iggy Pop behind it is like opening a well shaken-up can of lager unawares. ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Who Was That Masked Man?
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 23 February 1980
SOMETHING GARDENS the place was called. Gardens? At a conservative estimate not so much as a blade of grass had dared to peep above ground ...
Fabulous Thunderbirds: Thunderbirds Are Go!
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 March 1980
"I'M REALLY good at this kind of thing." said Kim Wilson. "Broken hearts or broken legs, they're all the same to me." He jabbed a ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 15 March 1980
IT'S HARD to know what to make of little Eric. I'm glad he's there but I'm not sure why. I keep getting this tantalising feeling ...
Penetration: Going Underground
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 5 April 1980
SO YOU'RE learning to write music, Pauline – how's it done then? ...
Laurel Aitken, Spartacus R: Laurel Aitken, Spartacus: The Venue, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 April 1980
THIS CONCERT was billed as a comeback but it proved to be a travesty. Poor old Laurel Aitken. He was the original ska king back ...
Paul Young, Q Tips: Q Tips: Soul Survivors
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 12 April 1980
Q-TIPS, THE masterly new soul band now warming the airwaves with Joe Tex's 'SYSLJFM', were found on the wreckage of success - and you do ...
B.B. King: B B King: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 April 1980
THE QUALITY of B. B. King is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle dew from heaven...and I only wish Bill Shakespeare (what a fine ...
Joan Armatrading: Me Myself I (A&M)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 May 1980
JUST TO put new readers of my ongoing review of Joan Armatrading's work in the picture I should mention that I rather like this lady. ...
Paul McCartney: McCartney II (Parlophone)****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 17 May 1980
MUCH AS I bless and honour the name of Paul McCartney, I haven't wholly enjoyed an album he's been involved with since McCartney and Ram ...
Bauhaus: University of Surrey, Guildford
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 May 1980
TAKE RISKS and you win some and you lose more than you would if you didn't. Bauhaus declared their intentions with the title of their ...
John Cooper Clarke: The Bard Of Beasley Street At The Seat Of Learning
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 May 1980
THE OXFORD University Union porter peered at us fish-eyed. "Are you members?" he said. "Er, no - we're with the poet." ...
The Cure: Seventeen Seconds (Fiction) ****½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 24 May 1980
REALLY HANDY for you isn't it, reviewing an album a month after release when it's already up to 20 in the charts? Sorry. Don't blame ...
The Plasmatics: Beat To The Meat: The Plasmatics
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 31 May 1980
"You loved the Huns. You raved over the Vandals. You marveled at the Goths. You will SHIT when you see the Plasmatics." ...
Graham Parker And The Rumour: The Up Escalator
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, June 1980
THIS IS one of the best albums I've ever heard. It's so good that professional priorities went out the window and before I sat down ...
Toyah Wilcox: Toyah Willcox: The Blue Meaning (Safari)***1/2
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 7 June 1980
IN TERMS of energy input and output Toyah Willcox probably gives and takes more before breakfast on a slow morning than you or I in ...
Peter Gabriel: Mr. Clean: Peter Gabriel
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 14 June 1980
PETER GABRIEL was a little flustered. He is both a well-mannered and considerate man. He doesn't like to keep you waiting and possibly give the ...
Klark Kent, The Police: The Police: Crisis of Identity
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 28 June 1980
WHO WAS THAT MASKED MAN? KLARK KENT, STEWART COPELAND AND PHIL SUTCLIFFE REVEAL ALL (NEARLY) ...
The Police: Crisis of Identity
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 28 June 1980
SOMETHING CAUGHT the corner of my vision, I spun round and there was Superman bounding straight towards the window and alighting on the sill with ...
The Jam: The Making of The Jam: The Men Behind The Scenes
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 19 July 1980
THE JAM: it's a family affair. A family of blood and/or loyalty, stick-together adhesion and sense of common purpose you might expect to come ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 26 July 1980
IN THE STRANGE WAY it has at certain phases of your life, time is running backwards for Joan Armatrading. She's growing younger. To prove it ...
Delta 5: The Delta Of Venus: Delta 5
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 2 August 1980
"DEL-TA-5! DEL-TA-5!" is good to chant. It feels as good as "Up-Starts! Up-starts!" or "A-C-D-C! A-C-D-C!" What might surprise you is that Delta 5 — ...
Split Enz: True Colours (A&M) ***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 August 1980
THE NAME might just ring a bell. Split Enz, the most unlikely musical product of the Antipodes (taking it that Duffo has nothing to do ...
Split Enz: True Colours (A&M) ***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 August 1980
THE NAME might just ring a bell. Split Enz, the most unlikely musical product of the Antipodes (taking it that Duffo has nothing to do ...
Killing Joke: That Primitive Feeling: Killing Joke
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 August 1980
I MET KILLING Joke in one of the hellhole dressing-rooms at the Music Machine. I introduced myself to various people who weren't in the band ...
Kate Bush: Passion Always Wins
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 August 1980
WHAT THEY say about Kate Bush is that she’s a lisping innocent, a born-with-a-silver-spoon, a too-good-to-be-true, a safe and uncontroversial, soppy, record industry banker. ...
UB40: Smiling Faces, Angry Words: The UB40 Paradox
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 September 1980
THE UB40 TEAM met in a caff, the Wimpy opposite their office in central Brimingham. In fact Ali, Robin and Brian had arrived ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 11 October 1980
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN once said simply this: "I want it all." I've taken it out of context but, judging by the recent Dave Marsh biography, it ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 22 November 1980
A meal on wheels... and it's finger-lickin' good, sez PHIL SUTCLIFFE ...
Aretha Franklin: At the Victoria Apollo
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 29 November 1980
PREJUDICES ON THE TABLE: I think Aretha Franklin has the most stirring, moving voice I've every heard, but I'm much less sure about the use ...
Tygers of Pan Tang: Tygers, Tygers, Burning Bright
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 10 January 1981
The TOPT are even better with new singer JOHN DEVERIL, claims PHIL SUTCLIFFE ...
Poison Girls: Total Exposure (xntrix)***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 January 1982
POISON GIRLS' music doesn't tell you anything new. Barely evolved from the ugly end of punk it grinds or charges along with an oppressive grimness ...
Nik Kershaw: Fame! Riches! Fast Cars! Lots Of Free Meals And Fizzy Drinks!
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Smash Hits, 13 September 1984
ABOUT A YEAR ago it was Nik and Sheri Kershaw's wedding day. Registry office, parents and friends, reception at their small house in Essex, cut ...
Bruce Springsteen: "My cousin saw Bruce down Fifth Avenue!"
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1986
"HI gang, this is Martha in Marietta, Georgia. I gotta lotta Springsteen bootlegs and I wanna trade... Hi, Howie in Boston again. My cousin in ...
Madness, The Selecter, The Specials: The End of 2-Tone: Madness/The Specials/The Selecter
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1986
Farewell, Madness – the last of the 2-Tone tribe. Phil Sutcliffe follows the fate of the three groups that pioneered the ska revival. ...
Pink Floyd: Roger Waters: "...a rage for simple vengeance"
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1987
After all those nights of psychedelic love and peace at the UFO and the Middle Earth in '67, Pink Floyd have ended up — like ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1987
"I WANT TO look eighteen or younger, right?" says Christine McVie, aged 42. "I know – an impossible task!" ...
Pink Floyd: A Momentary Lapse Of Reason
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1987
I WRITE AS a person of definably bog-standard taste when it comes to the Floyd; each in their season, I liked 'See Emily Play', Dark ...
M/A/R/R/S: Sound Wars: M/A/R/R/S Vs. Stock, Aitken, Waterman
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1987
At what point does sampling cross the fine line between flattery and theft? The battle between Stock Aitken Waterman and M/A/R/R/S may be the first ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1988
Remixed albums are big business. Call in a remix engineer and squeeze more sales out of the same songs. Ideal for injecting added danceability. Useful ...
Eurythmics: Annie Lennox: Just Think...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1988
...about the group she formed with the acid-drenched folk-strumming minstrel who proposed to her in a vegetarian restaurant. And the calamitous demise. And the legal ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1988
They signed a record deal and – two years, four producers and £600,000 later – released an LP. Wet Wet Wet had to sell a ...
Joni Mitchell: Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1988
She's danced to the beat of her own drum all the way from Laurel Canyon to uptown Los Angeles. Joni Mitchell talks about her life, ...
Godley & Creme: "We've got just the video for you, Sir!"
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1988
You have entered the celebrated emporium of Godley & Creme — Makers of Bespoke Promotional Footage For The Rich And Famous. Money, no object. Egos, ...
Elton John: You've got to laugh…
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1988
There aren't many options when you're alleged to have cancer, be involved in scandalous sexual malpractices and your hotel room has been bugged by the ...
Gary Numan: The Mad Max Factor
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1988
Despised by the press, cold-shouldered by radio, physically attacked by members of the public — life's never been a bowl of cherries for Old Chalk ...
Acid House: The Selling Of Smiley Culture
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1989
Like punk before it, acid house was a cult fanned by the media into a mass market industry. Major labels latched on to the music, ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1989
Even the most commercial artists can't be guaranteed to sell cinema tickets. But then history has rarely smiled upon the safe self-edited rock documentary. ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1989
Madonna has signed a $7.5 million deal with Pepsi which allows them the "world exclusive" on her single. They call it "synergy". Others call it ...
New Model Army: Join The Professionals: New Model Army
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1989
There are few more devoted disciples than the followers of New Model Army. For many it's a full-time job — hitchhiking to every concert, home ...
Kirsty MacColl: 20-Track Record
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1989
Kirsty MacColl is much in demand as the single-handed supplier of "Beach Boys" backing vocals to the discerning megastar. Now, with a bold and characterful ...
Peter Gabriel: Organised Chaos: Peter Gabriel
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1989
Peter Gabriel: patron of the arts, tireless campaigner for human rights, influential champion of world music and, now, proud proprietor of a studio complex and ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1989
LET'S GET this straight at the outset; this isn't the new Prefab Sprout album and they aren't protest songs. Confused? Listen to Paddy McAloon and ...
Average White Band: Aftershock
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1989
FROM CALEDONIA to California, the Average White Band pick up the pieces and bounce off the ceiling. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1989
Three years. Four producers. Nine studios. A million pounds. One album. When Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal began recording the successor to their nine million-selling ...
Allman Brothers Band: The Allman Brothers: Dream
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1989
THE STORY OF The Allman Brothers Band has been one of the great epics of rock 'n' roll, replete with all the Homeric ingredients of ...
Yes: Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe: Mission Improbable
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1989
They’ve survived countless changes of fashion, years of critical contempt, musical and personal differences de luxe. For legal reasons they can’t even call themselves Yes. ...
Kate Bush: Iron Maiden: Kate Bush
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1989
Although signed at the tender age of 18, Kate Bush stoutly refused to be "the record company's daughter". She's quietly become her own manager, producer, ...
Black Box, Loleatta Holloway: Black Box: This Means War!
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1989
There's insurrection in the ranks. Stock Aitken & Waterman's supremacy has been overthrown by a troupe of battle-scarred no-holds-barred dance producers from Bologna. Phil Sutcliffe ...
Michelle Shocked: Captain Swing
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1989
Short Sharp Shocked may have established a reputation as a serious radical, but it's her sheer exuberance that makes you pay attention. ...
Paul McCartney: The Support Group
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1990
They are a bona fide rock'n'roll family unit, in the magnanimous — if somewhat fanciful — view of their proprietor. And his band back him ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1990
AS IF UNTOUCHED by the international success of their last album, Diesel And Dust ('87), and its attendant smash single 'Beds Are Burning', Blue Sky ...
Tanita Tikaram: The Sweet Keeper
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1990
TANITA TIKARAM IS blessed. She has a voice which, on the evidence so far, is incapable of sounding unattractive; strong, low and husky, hinting at ...
The Notting Hillbillies: For a Few Dollars Less
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1990
Knackered by the stadium circuit and in urgent need of spiritual rejuvenation, Mark Knopfler played a pub gig back in ’86 with two fellow fingerpicking ...
Singles Incentives, Rank Outsiders
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1990
SO, FAREWELL – to the Fine Young Cannibals single in a tin, to the Eurythmics in a wooden casket, and to Eric Clapton in a ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1990
FOR ALL THAT he's blind, white, Canadian and holds his guitar on his lap as if it were a zither, a year ago Jeff Healey ...
Inspiral Carpets: Wish you were here
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1990
It’s a sun-kissed "no-lose situation" for Inspiral Carpets. Surfing on the stupendous sales of their shock-the-vicar T-shirt selection, and equipped with a user-friendly record deal ...
Joan Armatrading: Hearts And Flowers
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1990
NOW HERE'S A surprise. The words go, "Touch me baby/I don't wanna get up after we've made love/Don't wanna leave your bed" and the singer ...
Bob Geldof: The Vegetarians Of Love
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1990
WHAT A SUPERB surprise – Geldof in brilliant comeback shock! ...
Marta Sebestyen, Muzsikas: Marta Sebestyen and Muzsikas: No Sleep 'til Ballachulish!
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1990
Their flight cases crammed with goatskin bagpipes and three-stringed contras, Hungarian minstrels Marta Sebestyen and Muzsikas are midway through a whistle-stop international tour. And as ...
Bruce Springsteen: Busman's Holiday: Bruce Springsteen 1987-1990
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1990
When not touring the world's stadiums, was Bruce Springstreen to be found morosely grouting his bathroom tiles and ruefully reflecting upon his broken marriage? Indeed ...
Roger Waters: The Wall In Berlin
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1990
They said it couldn’t be done. The most extravagant reconstruction of The Wall, featuring the most unlikely and impressive cast, the most immodestly proportioned props ...
Joe Jackson: Stepping Out: The Very Best Of Joe Jackson
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1990
MAYBE JOE JACKSON has never stood still long enough for a lot of people to get to like him. Although The Very Best Of – ...
Joan Armatrading: Sean Mayes: Joan Armatrading
Book Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1990
WEATHERED AS HE was by turbulent years on the road with The Equals and Vinegar Joe, when it came to Joan Armatrading producer Pete Gage ...
Miming: Here's One We Prepared Earlier…
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1990
IT WAS THE Prince's Trust Concert of 1985 and Wembley Arena swayed gently to Dire Straits' lushly bestringed lament for star-crossed lovers, 'Romeo And Juliet'. ...
The Judds: Love Can Build A Bridge (BMG 90531)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1990
AFTER SEVEN years of drawing their "new country" congregation to an ever broader church, songwriting mom Naomi and lead-singing daughter Wynonna this time nod to ...
Paul Simon: The Rhythm Of The Saints
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1990
IN THE CHARTS The Rhythm Of The Saints has already proved itself an apt follow-up to Graceland with 'The Obvious Child' a sizable hit single ...
Traveling Wilburys: Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1990
SO SPIKE, MUDDY, Boo and Clayton are back – in the sense that, although that's not at all what the Wilburys were called last time, ...
Iron Maiden: Pas de moshing, s’il vous plait!
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1991
"MES AMIS, il faut que nous arretons un moment," says the longhaired singer in leather jacket, skintight sports trews and a French accent truly Churchillian ...
Sting : Where The Hell Have You Been?
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1991
"I HAD A FUNNY experience a couple of months ago when I took my eldest son. Joe, to see England versus Hungary," says Sting – ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1991
Mostly victorious, the reign of Queen has seen two decades of pomp and bombast, outsized gestures and theatrical flamboyance. But, as Phil Sutcliffe discovers, even ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1991
WHEN IT COMES to a "Dadodadodadodado" there's never been one to match the start of Eurythmics' only British Number 1, 'There Must Be An Angel ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1991
LAST YEAR'S HANDS-DOWN winner in the specialist category of best debut album by a dreadlocked Russo-Jewish Bahamian-American, Lenny Kravitz has since gone global, being taken ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1991
"I ENJOY staying here," says Jim Kerr, the broth of his Glasgow accent as thick as ever. His upturned palms take in not only ...
Ian Dury: lan Dury: Hello Tosh, Got A New Career Strategy?
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1991
"ME AND The Blockheads were gigging in Spain a few weeks ago, partly to see if we really did want to get together again. ...
Mike + the Mechanics: Mike & The Mechanics: Word Of Mouth
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1991
MIKE RUTHERFORD NEED never have established contact with Planet Earth as most of us know it. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1991
THEY PROBABLY STARTED DIPPING the gold discs the moment it was announced that New Order's singer Bernard Sumner and the modern world's most in-demand freelance ...
Pink Floyd: Nicholas Schaffner: Saucerful Of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey
Book Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1991
"THE SITUATION WAS GOING from mad to worse," writes Nicholas Schaffner as Syd Barrett goes AWOL inside his head yet again. ...
Rough Trade Records: Life After Debt?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1991
On May 31, Rough Trade was pronounced dead. Thus ended a 15-year indie dynasty run by "brown ricers" — with a £40 million turnover. But ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1991
After nine months of strenuous legal wrangling, The Stone Roses have extricated themselves from an "oppressive", "one-sided and unfair" contract. Report by Phil Sutcliffe. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1991
ON MAY 7, Beverley Craven did a show in Enschede, Holland, then she caught a plane back to England to record Top Of The Pops ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1991
OF COURSE, WHEN IT COMES to pop lyrics, any old bollocks will do, given the tune and given the feel. "All right now", "She loves ...
Level 42, Squeeze: Level 42; Squeeze: Crystal Palace, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1991
THE MICRO-economic indicators at Crystal Palace Bowl are contradictory: the touts are offering tickets at "less than box office price" but with the opening act ...
Van Morrison: Hymns To The Silence
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1991
QUINTESSENTIALLY quare maybe, but Van Morrison is certainly a worker. His third new album within 27 months weighs in at 95 minutes. For Van addicts ...
Top Of The Pops: Down The Pan?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1991
Top Of The Pops has been the BBC's flagship music show for 27 years. But it's facing problems: stale format, falling teenage population, and public ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1991
MORE THAN A SCORE of Top 30 hits under four different names over 10 years and it seems obvious that Chorus will only keep them ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1991
CALLING IT WE CAN'T DANCE may be a chucklesome admission that, in the five years since Invisible Touch, Genesis have candidly let the rave scene ...
Joe Strummer, The Pogues: The Pogues: Determined
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1991
THE WILTERN THEATRE, LOS ANGELES, October 10, 1991 ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1992
WHETHER A FOUR-RECORD COMPILATION covering Factory's history is timely self-celebration or urgent self-preservation against the recession, the label's deserved reputation as innovator and provocateur prepares ...
Marc Cohn: This Man Is About To Expose Himself…
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1992
"Here's a tune that I wrote in the back seat of a cab going to meet my girlfriend," says Marc Cohn, doodling a few piano ...
Moe Tucker: One Woman Named Moe
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1992
FORMER Velvet Underground drummer Moe Tucker’s life seems to have involved two passionate commitments: to music and motherhood. Her reminiscences, though, often come round to ...
Ticket Touting: On Every Street
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1992
"IT'S A QUESTION of water in the desert," say Harry the ticket tout. "If someone's got the water and you need it, you'll pay him ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1992
FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION SPLIT after one platinum album, The First Of A Million Kisses; 'Perfect', the sound of summer '88, was soundaliked and killed by an ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1992
A YEAR AGO, with Gulf War self-censorship at fever pitch, the Phonogram board would have needed sedation after the opening lines from 'Mother': "These wars ...
David Byrne, Talking Heads: Severed Heads: Talking Heads and David Byrne
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1992
"LOOKING AT old videos of Talking Heads," says David Byrne, "it's like three normal kids backing up this maniac — three people who have their ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1992
SAME VANCOUVER studio, same production/writing team of lang, Greg Penny and Ben Mink, even the same pesky lower-case initials, but Absolute Torch And Twang was ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1992
He's tooled around for 20 years like a leisurely gentleman-hippie. Isn't it time Kevin Ayers got back on the case? ...
Annie Lennox: No worries? That’s worrying...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
Leaving Eurythmics has given her freedom. Becoming a mother has brought her happiness. So what’s Annie Lennox’s problem now? It’s writing songs, she tells Phil ...
David Byrne, Talking Heads: David Byrne
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
For years the frontman of Talking Heads, David Byrne has emerged as a solo artist now – but his newest album shares the same off-beat ...
Def Leppard: Adrenalize (Bludgeon Riffola 510978)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
NARROWA five-year wait! Layered guitars! Walls of harmony! It can only be Def Leppard... ...
The Fall: Mark E. Smith on Lyrics
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
Few people alive today can remember a time when there wasn't Mark E. Smith, fronting his band The Fall and snarling harsh, cryptic couplets at ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
Salt is a member of New York rap act Salt 'N' Pepa, makers of hits such as 'Push It' and 'Let's Talk About Sex'. Of ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1992
THERE ARE worse jobs than being Smokey Robinson. He's 52, with 2,000 songs down the pike, and still writing as easily as falling out of ...
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine: Carter USM: 1992 – The Love Album
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1992
"I WAS born under a wandering star/In the second council house of Virgo/Forcibly removed from the belly of my ma/And raised on milk and Pernod". ...
Crowded House: Don't Dream It's Over
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1992
Last year, Crowded House played Britain and hardly anyone noticed. This time they've had to book Wembley Arena. Maybe the turnaround came just in time ...
Emerson Lake And Palmer: ELP: Cecile B de Mrs Mills
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1992
They've called them "Progressive dinosaurs", "excessive musos", "self-gratifying bores". They've always called themselves ELP. "Probably one of the most misunderstood bands in the world," they ...
Prince: The Entertainment Centre, Sydney, Australia
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1992
"I DIDN'T really notice Prince till he walked through the schoolyard one day wearing just an open trench coat and a pair of underpants," says ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1992
Elton John returns with one great song, a few deft touches and some stodge. ...
Marc Almond: The Innocent Exhibitionist
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1992
His search for inner fulfillment took him to places that respectable folk would sooner not know about. Now Marc Almond has decided where he truly ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1992
AH YES, THE BONZOS. Laugh? Uh. Well, did we? When an expensive CD three-pack of all their albums (plus bits) demands that the critical cobwebs ...
R.E.M.: Automatic For The People
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1992
MILLIONS HAVE BEEN waiting on the new R.E.M. album, and almost none of them is barmy. ...
Jimi Hendrix: Calling Long Distance and The Ultimate Experience
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1992
THERE ARE RECKONED to have been only six Hendrix albums authorised by the artist himself, but he has been so ruthlessly repackaged, reassembled, re-issued and ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1992
WEIRD. ALMOST EVERY blushful purchaser will have recently caught the artist in flagrante, bollock, so to speak, naked. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1993
THESE DIGITAL remasters are diamonds in the tottering junkpile of Hendrix re-releases and cutting-room floor detritus. Augmented by both sides of the first three singles ...
George Michael: D.I.V.O.R.C.E.
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1993
George Michael vs. Sony: "We do not speak the same language." ...
Ian Dury: The Bus Driver's Prayer & Other Stories (Demon Fiend)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1993
"I TOOK a sudden notion/To go down to the ocean", Ian Dury imparts in 'Poo-Poo In The Prawn'. ...
Factory Records: Hacienda that?
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1993
THE LATEST Manchester T-shirt says "Hacienda that". But is it? After the great indie label's collapse under debts of more than £2 million in late ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1993
PERVERSE COULD be the sound of tomorrow today, if it wasn't so full of yesterdays. Not surprising when the sleeve of Jesus Jones's debut, Liquidizer, ...
David Coverdale, Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page and David Coverdale: Who’d Have Thought…?
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1993
... thought, that is, that the devil devotee doyen of decibel dementia (that's Jimmy Page) and the python-powered potentate of poodle rock, David Coverdale, could, ...
Happy Mondays: It’ll End In Tears…
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1993
IT WAS KENTUCKY Fried Chicken that did for the Happy Mondays, according to eye-witness accounts. The band were all foregathered at EMI's London HQ with ...
Vince Power: Power, Corruption and Lies?
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1993
Once, he ran a junk shop; now Vince Power's a powerful music impresario. But last month's acquisition of London's Town & Country Club has led ...
World Party: Bang! (Ensign Chen)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1993
Bang! is Karl Wallinger's Victor Meldrew album. Sequestered in a garret for two years since Goodbye Jumbo, he shuffles blinking into the daylight to enquire, ...
Crowded House: Crowded House OBE
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1993
WHAT A QUEER old month it's been for past and present members of Crowded House. In June they visited the UK to sequence their album ...
Dexys Midnight Runners: Kevin Rowland & Dexy’s Midnight Runners: This Is My Confession
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1993
Meet Kevin Rowland, famously difficult leader of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, where the protestant work ethic collided with catholic guilt and violins combined with brass to ...
PJ Harvey: Sun, Sea, Sand And Sex!
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1993
And very nice too, thanks, apart from the sex, which in the warped world of PJ Harvey is an anguished, violent, even blood-spattered activity. Set ...
Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: King Of Pain
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1993
On the eve of the release of In Utero, the hungrily-anticipated successor to their planet-rogering Nevermind, Q meets Nirvana and delves into Kurt Cobain's curious ...
George Michael Vs Sony: This Time It's Personal
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1993
DOWN AT THE High Court, as Q went to press, the case of George Michael versus Sony was prodigiously well-paid business as usual for the ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1993
BASICALLY, UNCOOL, £12-million-a-year, Tory-endorsing Phil Collins is good on Love, not much cop on Life. So although, for reasons unknown, the totally solo Both Sides ...
Baker Bruce Moore: BBM: Grumpy Old Men
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1994
Call it the half-fat Cream reunion at your peril, mention old boy Eric if you dare, but BBM does share some of the legendary stroppiness ...
Mayhem: Black Metal: Bloody Hell!
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1994
Of course, it's all a right old laugh, Death Metal, isn't it? But in the long Scandinavian nights, some people have failed to see the ...
Pink Floyd: The Division Bell (EMI)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1994
WHAT PINK Floyd are telling the world in official communiques – and presumably telling themselves – is that their first new album since 1987's A ...
Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: The Heartbreak Kid
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1994
KURT COBAIN was a great success. He wrote, he sang, he played lead guitar for the new band of the '90s. He made millions of ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1994
SHE HAD never played a gig in her life before and now she was about to make her debut in front of 15,000 people at ...
Bonnie Raitt: Labatt's Apollo, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1994
SORTEDBonnie Raitt: she knows where she's going and she knows where she's been. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1994
SINEAD O'CONNOR is back in Dublin, her home town, and she's in a milk stout frame of mind, blacks and whites all mixed up. Indeed, ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1994
"I ENVY edgy babes like Sheryl, Tori, Polly Jean," says Shawn Colvin, though she seems like a nice girl. "I haven't been embraced by the ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Not The Led Zep Reunion
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1994
That Page And Plant Unledded film, plugged. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1995
How the devil are you? I'm having a ball. ...
Bruce Springsteen: “I Wanna Tell You A Story...”
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1995
Bruce Springsteen, Rock Orator, on Life, Love, Art and everything ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1995
She worked with Michael Jackson, Rod Stewart and Don Henley. Now she's feted by Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Stones. And in time-honoured fashion, ...
Stevie Wonder: It's Good To Be The King
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1995
It's been a few years — oh alright then, decades — since "Little" Stevie Wonder was seriously big. But beyond the heavyweight collaborations, the myriad ...
Faith No More: Regrets, They Have A Few
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1995
"I'M A FUCKED-up individual," says Roddy Bottum, Faith No More's keyboard player, reviewing recent difficult times. He grins, sort of. ...
Joy Division: Deborah Curtis: Touching From A Distance: Ian Curtis And Joy Division (Faber & Faber)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1995
AS THE JOURNALIST and pop historian Jon Savage Suggests in his foreword, for one narrowly defined sub-generation, Ian Curtis's suicide was a first personal encounter ...
Janet Jackson: Ripply: Janet Jackson: Sheffield Arena, Sheffield
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1995
JANET JACKSON slinks out of the shadows and straddles a chair, legs wide apart. ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1995
It also dines on doubt, nibbles the nerve endings and makes a hell of a mess of your trousers. Stage fright, that least welcome of ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 1995
At first it was barely a string of fairy lights. Then it was something called an Azimuth Converter. And then a giant screen, a Spitfire, ...
Morrissey: Morrisey: Southpaw Grammar (RCA)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1995
Wherein Morrissey discovers the missing link between The Byrds' jingle-jangle and Young/Cobain grunge. In contrast to Vauxhall And I, often gentle of mood and sentiment, ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1995
Still red — politically, tonsorially and Simply — the alleged panther-like Mick Hucknall is teetering on the brink of another globe-goosing success with the follow-up ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Ghost Of Tom Joad
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 1995
SPRINGSTEEN'S GOT HIS BOTTLE back. After the diverse dissatisfactions of Human Touch, Lucky Town, the point-defeating In Concert: MTV Plugged, and the unnecessary Greatest Hits, ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 1996
"You wouldn’t believe the number of people who come to our front door," says Noel Gallagher with a grin full of rue and a wary ...
Coolio: He's Got The Whole World In His Hand
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1996
Ex-crackhead, erstwhile firman and father of five, Coolio all but conquered the planet with 'Gangsta's Paradise' — but he's not letting it go to his ...
Pulp: Here's Looking At You, Kids
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1996
PULP LANDED in Sweden last night, but they're still coming down from Japan. Circumnavigational jet lag vies with cultural bouleversement for command of the mental ...
Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler: Mark Knopfler
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 1996
"I’m always conscious of... how hard life is for a lot of people," says Mark Knopfler. The eight-bar rest midsentence is characteristic. Likewise, the right ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 1996
PACKAGING HAS RARELY had more to say about the content of an album. Older's booklet interleaves lyrics with full-page shots of George Michael frowning, hanging ...
Joan Osborne: America's Latest Flame
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 1996
Sass, sexiness, and sackfuls of self-assurance have taken mic stand-stradding Grammy-dodger Joan Osborne from Kentucky's hick climes to a place at the heart of the ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 1996
There's nothing more mild-mannered than a mild-mannered Canadian. But rub one up the wrong way and the consequences can be dramatic. And profitable. Just ask ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1996
And rich. And famous. And in films. Bon Jovi have been to the brink, cocked a manly Noo Joisey snook at it, and bounded back, ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1996
HE MAY be 30 years "in the business", 25 albums down the line, and possessed of all the fans his idiosyncratic body of work is ...
The Boo Radleys: Didn't Feel A Thing
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1996
"IF YOU'RE doing music you're supposed to pretend you're something you're not, you're supposed to sound as though you come from a different planet. You're ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Songs And Music From The Motion Picture She's The One
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1996
TOM PETTY WAS BORN to be a classic runner. The only question with each new release is whether he's out for a canter or the ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1996
Asked to provide one song for a film soundtrack, Tom Petty rather overshot the brief and wound up laying down an album’s worth. ...
Sting: "Does my bum look big in this?"
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, October 1996
Do us a favour! You, sir, are the tantric titan of tunesmanship. Bawdy baron of blokedom. Goegeous god of... oh stop it. In Seattle, pondering ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 1997
Fifth album in six years; as ever a Stephen Street production. Change of ’direction’ hears Blur muss up their sound and back-pedal into the future. ...
Depeche Mode: They Just Couldn't Get Enough
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1997
"I heard it on the radio: Dave had overdosed, nearly died, then been arrested for drugs offences. That was when I thought Depeche Mode were ...
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: The Boatman's Call
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 1997
"I DON'T believe in an interventionist God/But I know, darling, that you do" ('Into My Arms'). Those are the first lines of the album; Cave's ...
James: Valiant James Back From the Brink
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 1997
James: The Roxy, Atlanta, Georgia ...
The Beautiful South: The Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 1997
PLAINLY NOT RUGGED T-SHIRT-IN-A-SNOW-storm northerners, The Beautiful South's vocal frontline take to the stage for their second night at the RAH in a winter collection ...
Aerosmith, Kula Shaker: Aerosmith and Kula Shaker On The Road
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 1997
The raddled and the fresh-faced. The stellar and the starry-eyed. The seen-it-all and the wannabes. Perhaps, harsh to say, the past and the future. It ...
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. ...
“Bastards. Liars. Pimps. Theives. Scumsuckers. Perverts...”
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1997
...And that's some of the nicer things they say about rock'n'roll managers. they may have swapped their baseball bats for law degrees, but as Phil ...
Oasis: “Of course, me and Liam had a row about it...”
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1997
Seventy-two minutes. Twelve tracks. No co-credits. Noel Gallagher talks Phil Sutcliffe through Oasis's third magnum opus, Be Here Now. ...
Oasis: “Piece of piss!”: The Oasis Diaries
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1997
The drugs, the in-fighting, the secret weddings and, in the midst of it all, just the small matter of the most anticipated album of the ...
Oasis: In The Studio With Oasis
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1997
An interview with Oasis producer Owen Morris ...
Ocean Colour Scene: Marchin' Already
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 1997
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE stir mighty passions in the breasts of some — Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher being the conspicuous celeb celebrants — and leave ...
Oasis, The Verve: Oasis/The Verve: London, Earl's Court
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 1997
AS PAUL Du Noyer wrote recently, somewhere along the road to epoch-making Oasis "took it as their job to cheer the country up". To which ...
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1997
Or the New Dylans. Or the New Stones. Maybe they were the New Johnny Hates Jazz. Whatever, whether plugging a gap left by the originals ...
Bob Dylan: Drop-kicked by Jesus: Bob Dylan's Conversion
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1997
In which the eternal sceptic did a Damascus and managed an unlikely artistic rebirth. Phil Sutcliffe takes confession... ...
Kristin Hersh, Throwing Muses: Kristin Hersh
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1998
At 6, Kristin Hersh was a hippy commune kid whose babysitter was on acid. At 22 she had a brain tumor and thought evil spirits ...
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 1998
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, aged 25 on March 23, is one of the great monuments of rock history – as overwhelming aesthetically ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 1998
WHITE GUYS from the '60s R&B generation don't get the same latitude as black "originals" to spend their last 20 or 30 years nestling back ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 1998
They were young. They were feral. They played unfeasibly good rock music. And they hit the road hard. It could only end in heartbreak. Phil ...
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1998
...
Prince: The Artist Formerly Known As Successful
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 1998
He wriggled away From Warners and the quality control went West. He swopped Prince for Victor for Slave for O(+>) and the fans just couldn't ...
Sheryl Crow: The Globe Sessions
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 1998
Too country for pop? Too poppin’ for rock? Or, rather gorgeously, just right? Sheryl Crow’s third album: the debate continues. ...
Jools Holland’s Rhythm And Blues Orchestra: Exeter University, October 8, 1998
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1998
At 3pm Jools Holland skis down the clouds above Exeter airport in the co-pilot’s seat of a chartered four-seater. Thumb aloft he leers over his ...
Now That's What I Call Censorship!!
Essay by Phil Sutcliffe, The Big Issue, 23 November 1998
WHAT DO THE SEX PISTOLS, ABBA AND FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD HAVE IN COMMON? THEY’VE ALL BEEN BANNED IN BRITAIN, THAT’S WHAT. PHIL SUTCLIFFE FINDS ...
Pete Townshend, Noel Gallagher and friends at the Sound Republic
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 1998
WHEN WORLDS kaleid... It’s the second "launch" night at Sound Republic, all chrome and cocktails and biz/media chatterati who won’t shut their yap no matter ...
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1998
Stress, nervous exhaustion, clinical depression: a litany of mental maladies lie in wait for the endlessly-gigging, maniacally-drugging, heart-on-sleeve purveyor of rock'n'roll. Phil "Prozac" Sutcliffe dons ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 1998
It is the '80s, and the decade is full of one Irish band and their guitarist's exotic millinary. So, follow Edge through the first ever ...
“...Two Bottles of 1963 Dom Perignon, Six Crack Whores”
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Hobomedia, 1999
Phill Sucliffe on the Rock Band Rider ...
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Nobody goes into rock’n’roll for the money. No, really. Ask any band. But the trouble is if a lot of people like them they get ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
"I spent last weekend in this delirium of writing," bubbles Beth Orton, delight unleashing her accent’s full eccentricity – Cockney caw, Norfolk moo and middle-class ...
Profile by Phil Sutcliffe, Heat, 1999
Picture this: Debbie Harry, at 25, all cheek bones, blonde hair and cool – and spending her days with a pinnie and a Hoover cleaning ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Phil Sutcliffe checks out the history of British bands making it, and failing to make it, in the USA, and looks at the example of ...
Dave Matthews Band: The Pyramid, Memphis, August 11, 1998
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
BIG IN AMERICA. Small everywhere else. Knows how to deal with tear gas. "I’m here to serve woman, to knock out that moose and drag ...
Emerson Lake And Palmer: ELP: The Unsung Roadie
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Consider this as a picture at an exhibition. A 10,000-seat arena on the afternoon before an Emerson, Lake & Palmer concert; on stage an orderly ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 1999
First they were lovers. Then they created one of the great pop groups of the ’80s. Then they didn’t exchange a word for four years... ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
IN THIS ISSUE of Q, Michael Stipe, whose public utterances have crept closer to coming out of late, finally does the deed in a cool ...
Kinky Friedman: God Bless John Wayne (Faber and Faber)
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Kinky Friedman is full of himself. He always was in his ’70s singing days with provocateur country & western outfit The Texas Jewboys. And now ...
Manic Street Preachers: Northgate Arena, Chester
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
"It’s quite corny," James Dean Bradfield allows, reflecting on Manic Street Preachers' September tour of the towns that rock forgot. "I just remember where we ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
The Wedding Of The Decade’s glamourous shambles began back-stage after The Rolling Stones’ Paris Olympia show on September 23, 1970. When Mick Jagger met 25-year-old ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, 1999
Tangled webs, anyone? Rock’n’roll’s got them by the skein, especially when it comes to money. But the case of The Verve, Allen Klein and Andrew ...
Pete Townshend, The Who: Pete Townshend: on The Who and Lifehouse
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 1999
The Who on the road in America again, just 18 years after their farewell tour? "It’s a long story and not a particularly nice one," ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
There’s a knock at the front door. You open it. A slight young man standing there says, "Today I’m here to talk to you about ...
Alanis Morissette, Joan Osborne, Sheryl Crow: Silent Partners: Writers, Producers, Players
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Phil Sutcliffe looks at the men who helped midwife albums by Sheryl Crow, Joan Osborne and Alanis Morissette ...
Sinead O'Connor: Sinéad O’Connor Hits Back at Tabloid Critics
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Yet another awful week in the tabloids for Sinéad O’Connor began on April 12 with The Sun’s "Sinéad’s Shambles" headline on its coverage of the ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
As soon as Smashing Pumpkins released Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness in October 1995, their shaven-skulled mainman Billy Corgan buttheaded his way round the ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Sharleen Spiteri is foaming in retrospect. "I don’t like lies, I don’t like bullshit," she affirms, her fist impressing the point on the arm of ...
Prince: The Artist: Emancipated Slave
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
"I HAVE DREAMS of angels holding notes indefinitely in perfect pitch and you don’t want it to stop because if it does you’re dead!" The ...
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 1999
Phil Sutcliffe tells of the winners and losers in music publishing ...
Celine Dion: Christmas pudding — Celine Dion: These Are Special Times (Epic 492730 2)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 1999
T'is the season to cobble together an album. ...
Bruce Springsteen: It's a Vet's Life: Bruce Springsteen and Born in the USA
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 1999
It was Springsteen's most epic moment – and his most misunderstood. Phil Sutcliffe uncovers the double life of Born In The USA. ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Greatest Band In The World?
Profile by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 1999
"With Bruce, you wind up treating those four hours on stage as if someone said, You’ve got four hours left on Earth. What are you ...
Kula Shaker: Peasants Pigs & Astronauts (Columbia) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 1999
FOR A WHILE in 1996 it looked as though Kula Shaker were being watched over by the pantheon of gods and other bods portrayed on ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, May 1999
By the summer of 1975 Cat Stevens had it all. In the previous four years he had scored six American Top 10 albums in a ...
Bad Company: The Original Bad Co. CD Anthology
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 1999
After a period of bad blood and bad music Bad Company's founding foursome reconvene around a two-CD retrospective. ...
Sleeve notes by Phil Sutcliffe, Universal Records, July 1999
"We were hell-bent on what we did. I didn’t care if I lived or died but for the band." – Paul Rodgers ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 1999
Richard punched Pete and sunbbed Simon's wife. They all treated Nick like "kitty litter". Fame, money, workload, ego and mental illness killed The Verve just ...
Sting: The Rake's Progress: Sting: Brand New Day (A&M) ****
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1999
Still looking after himself — in and out of the studio ...
Alison Krauss: Forget About It
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1999
The German immigrant’s daughter from Illinois, who somehow became a bluegrass child prodigy, moves on from purism to pure beauty. ...
Robbie Williams: Bored With The USA
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1999
America loves him but he just wants his life back. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 2000
Therapised and raped by the age 12, famous and alienated by the music industry at 19, Fiona Apple is feeling better, thank you. She's got ...
Shane MacGowan, Sinead O'Connor: The Terrible State Of Shane MacGowan
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 2000
Skint, on drugs, walking a tightrope life, a young man dead in his flat: things could hardly have looked worse for Shane MacGowan. Then, astonishingly, ...
Led Zeppelin: Getting it Together at Bron-yr-Aur: The Story of Led Zeppelin III
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2000
Who’s moving into Bron-yr-Aur? Why, it’s that Led Zeppelin, come to shake off their blues roots and get talked. Phil Sutcliffe on the Welsh sojourn ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 2000
From Brixton jail to fragrant Hell's Angels bunfight: a weekend with Alabama 3 is one worth "tooling up" for. So hide your shiv in a ...
Adam & The Ants: Adam Ant: White Line Nightmare
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, December 2000
THE BOY looked at Paul McCartney. "I saw him through a crack in the door, going up the stairs chatting with my mum," says Adam ...
Emmylou Harris: Ghosts and Angels
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2000
The spectres of a war hero father and a doomed country troubador haunt her music. Emmylou Harris tells Phil Sutcliffe why she still hasn't found ...
Coldplay, Craig David, David Gray: Letter From London: Garage and The New Soft Rock
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, December 2000
"TO ME, ALL MELODIES were pure embarrassment," said Radiohead's Thom Yorke recently as he struggled to explain the making of Kid A. It hardly seems ...
Oasis: Familiar To Millions (Big Brother)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2000
Wembley Stadium, July 21, complete concert, two CDs, unvarnished, rather magnificent. Oasis’s "topsy-turvy-fuckin’-weird year" closes defiantly. ...
Willie Nelson Hits Springfield
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, unpublished, 2001
IT’S LONG PAST midnight at the Springfield, Illinois, State Fairground. Heavy rain slants down, dousing the day’s tangled aromas of corn dog, funnel cake and ...
Dido: No Angel? An Audience with Pop's New Queen
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 2001
"HELLO, LOVE, IT'S ME," chirps Dido into her mobile phone. Q tries not to listen. Q listens. "Did you record The Sopranos? Great." Then some ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, February 2001
OUTSIDE THE REAR door at the BBC Radio Theatre in central London there's an air of restless tension. A gaggle of girls giggles. A pack ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 2001
"I FIRST HEARD IT sitting in an armchair in our living room. 1957. I was 12. My sister Annetta, who's four years older, had bought ...
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 2001
IAN MACDONALD, now 52, was enraptured by The Beatles as a teenager, then generally disappointed by pop music from 1980 onwards. His attempt "to bring ...
Bob Dylan: Live 1961-2000: Thirty-Nine Years Of Great Concert Performances
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2001
A Japanese curio on import — a collation attempting to cover four decades with 16 tracks. And nobody said, "It might just not work". ...
Guns N' Roses: Didn't You Used To Be Axl Rose?
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, July 2001
When the reclusive Guns 'N Roses star re-emerged last year, even old band mates didn't recognise him. After a decade of hiring and firing, an ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 2001
CERYS MATTHEWS slung a guitar round her neck and strummed a few chords. Then something caught her eye. She stopped and stared. Her jaw dropped. ...
Spiritualized: Jason Pierce: The Urban Spaceman Falls To Earth
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 2001
COSMIC OR WHAT? Jason Pierce has conducted Q to a yellowed Hoxton hostelry called the Macbeth. By the door it sports a tiled mural illustrating ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2001
A live album dominated by Kid A and Amnesiac material: Radiohead's art-career strategy maintains brisk pace and high enigma quotient. ...
Coldplay, So Solid Crew, Starsailor: Letter from London, January 2002
Overview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, January 2002
WHILE, SINCE The Beatles, we British music fans have often affected insouciant confidence in the superiority of our taste over the rest of the world's ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2002
It's a long way from New York's 42nd Street to the 44th annual Grammy Awards. But after seven years of juggling Harlem street life, fractious ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2002
"I WAS TRYING to prove I could do it and come out alive." That was Eric Clapton's account of his immersion in heroin from 1970-74. ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Payday, March 2002
"WE'RE NOT GOING to let people rip us off, we want the money!" That's what Bono said in 1979 when Dublin's teenaged hopefuls U2 were ...
Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel 1, 2, 3 & 4; Plays Live; Birdy; So; Passion; Snaking The Tree; Us
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2002
Fine body of life's work remastered and reissued in "contemporised" Japanese-style mini vinyl die-cut gatefold sleeves. ...
Ozzy Osbourne: The Osbournes Conquers Britain
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2002
PICTURE THIS. It's next Monday night at Buckingham Palace, the grand finale of Queen Elizabeth II's jubilee concert. Stars of the British rock'n'roll firmament crowd ...
The Strokes, The White Stripes: Of Strokes and Stripes: An American Invasion
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, July 2002
LAST SUMMER THERE was a sign outside British music’s front door. It read "SITUATION VACANT", and then, in smaller print, "Wanted: the Next Big Thing". ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Blender, August 2002
Norah Jones wants you to listen to her gentle supper-club pop. And why not? The 23-year-old daughter of Ravi Shankar is the biggest leftfield star ...
Graham Coxon: The Great Escape...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 2002
Mental breakdowns and now the boot from his beloved Blur, 2002 has been a traumatic year for wayward guitarist Graham Coxon. Phil Sutcliffe discovers a ...
Norah Jones: Symphony Hall, Atlanta ****
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 2002
Languid jazz and songs about lap dancers? Must be an audience with America's engaging new sophisto-diva. ...
Mott The Hoople: Mojo Presents ... Mott The Hoople
Sleeve notes by Phil Sutcliffe, Mojo CD, 2003
THE BALLAD OF MOTT The Hoople is a tale of thigh-high platform boots and enormous moodswings, big shades and black leather and plans so ill ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, 2003
THE SCENE SHOULD you need it: quiet, sunny May Tuesday morning in Oxford. 10am and all quiet because the students are in bed or at ...
Kate Bush: Season Of The Witch
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2003
It's almost 25 years since 'Wuthering Heights' made Kate Bush into a star, and a decade since she quietly slipped from view. Phil Sutcliffe traces ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 22 February 2003
Celebrity dissent grows during U.K.'s music awards, as Coldplay's singer and Ms Dynamite protest an Iraq war. ...
Ms Dynamite, The Streets: Letter from London: The Streets and Ms Dynamite
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 23 March 2003
WHEN THE BEATLES flew over from England in the '60s, it seemed the whole of young America gathered at the airport to scream a welcome. ...
Neil Young: A Family Album: Neil Young's Risky New Project Traces A Fictional Clan's Story In Song
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, July 2003
LONDON -- Sitting on a stool amid a half-circle of racked guitars, two pianos and a pipe organ, lit by candles and an overhead spotlight ...
Memoir by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2003
Tracks and artists: Mississippi John Hurt: Candy Man/Coffee Blues/Stagolee. Brownie McGhee: Long Gone/Key To The Highway. Rev. Gary Davis: Samson And Delilah/I Won't Be Back ...
Neil Young: Greendale's Grandpa: Neil Young
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 2003
A WHITE PICKET FENCE, a neat clapboard house, smoke drifting from the chimney. Grandpa Green's rocking on the front porch, reading the paper. He says, ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 2003
"SHE'LL BE BIGGER than Olivia Newton John!" That's what incandescent young A&R man Michael Rosenblatt told his boss, Sire Records founder-owner Seymour Stein back in ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Evening Of My Best Day
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2003
Former L.A. hipster, now a mother and keen gardener, starts a new songwriting life after a six-year drought. ...
Fleetwood Mac: Take it to the Limit
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2003
"GOD KNOWS all our lives are unimaginable without each other," mutters Mick Fleetwood, glancing speculatively from one old friend to another. It's a line you ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis: The First Sun Sessions
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 2004
IT WAS A QUIET WEEK in Memphis. Monday, January 4, 1954. Everyone easing into the new year. Nobody paid any attention when, around lunchtime, a ...
Dolly Parton: Mother's Pride: Various: Just Because I'm A Woman: Songs Of Dolly Parton ****
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 2004
A dozen brilliant women with a stirring reminder that the beloved boob flaunter and wacky wig wearer is a truly great songwriter. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2004
DECEMBER 3, 1976. A mellow, starry Friday night at 56 Hope Road, Bob Marley's Kingston home. Children playing in the yard – three of them ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: The Shooting of Bob Marley
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2004
DECEMBER 3, 1976. A mellow, starry Friday night at 56 Hope Road, Bob Marley's Kingston home. Children playing in the yard - three of them ...
Franz Ferdinand: Franz Ferdinand
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 2004
They're talking "a European aesthetic", they're talking "vaudevillian art-pop". Yet it's so much more than that... ...
Norah Jones: Don't Fence Me In
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2004
Success Nearly Cost Norah Jones Her Sanity. Now She's Back – Stronger, Wiser And Ready To Do Things Her Way. ...
Pete Townshend, The Who: The Who: Lifehouse
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, April 2004
TRICKY CUSTOMER, Lifehouse. Pete Townshend spent the best part of a year from autumn, 1970, trying to explain it... ...
The Darkness: Permission To Like The Darkness
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 4 April 2004
YOU GUYS WONDER about us Brits sometimes, don't you? We're so proper and reserved, so tea and scones, so cricket, so ... just so. Then, ...
The Beastie Boys: The Beasties and their Boroughs
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 9 May 2004
"HEY, BUCKINGHAM PALACE!" says Mike Diamond in high, pinched New York tones as Beastie Boys' mini-bus swings past the ugly royal pile. "Hence all the ...
Alanis Morissette: So-Called Chaos (Maverick)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2004
Former phenomenon finds herself, but risks losing everyone else. ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2004
"IT'S OUR job to serve the lives of music fans," enthuses Conor McNicholas, editor of the NME, last survivor of the UK's once thriving weekly ...
Pink Floyd: Life After Roger: Pink Floyd
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 2004
UNTIL AUTUMN 1986, Pink Floyd was the invisible band. Their fame and fortune huge, their individual members anonymous. The arrangement always looked a perfect fit ...
The Jam, Paul Weller: Paul Weller: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2004
KEITH ALTHAM PR’d The Jam in the late '70s. In his book of post-retirement open letters to former clients, No More Mr Nice Guy, he ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2004
THEY WERE "CONCEPTS" all right, but that didn't make them the product of cool, analytical thinking. Back in the early '60s, Johnny Cash was wrestling ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 2005
It's been a 25-year trip from hard drugs and punch-ups in the Birthday Party to life as a 9-to-5 songwriter/genius. So, in a world of ...
The Faces: Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones on the Faces' Five Guys Walk into a Bar…
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 2005
Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones recall the birth of history's booziest band. Phil Sutcliffe listens in. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, unpublished, 2 April 2005
On working with a regular session team "A group of people in those days got selected to do a lot of work, which in a way ...
Bruce Springsteen: Devils & Dust
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2005
The E Street Band stand down again. So more for fans of Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad as Bruce leaves politics for the ...
Bruce Springsteen: Two River Theatre, Red Bank, NJ
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2005
Springsteen records his first-ever VH1 TV Storytellers session and rather likes it — two hours, eight songs and any amount of explanatory chat before an ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 2005
Schizoid double album includes an elegy for Grohl's old flatmate Kurt Cobain. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2005
IT OUGHT TO BE disconcerting that the toilet door is faulty and swings open of it's own accord catching MOJO in flagrante about to take ...
Neil Young: Prairie Wind (Reprise) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2005
FACT SHEET• Back to Nashville and without Crazy Horse.• Recorded either side of his recent health scare. • First album of a long-term contract renewal ...
David Gilmour, Phil Manzanera, Pink Floyd, Robert Wyatt: David Gilmour: And This Is Me...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2006
STRINGS SHIMMER, a bowed double-bass growls, a saxophone sighs. Heads bowed before the sound desk, David Gilmour and his two engineers listen. Again and again ...
Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Springsteen: We Shall Overcome – The Seeger Sessions
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2006
What Bruce did next: a hoedown gospel blues klezmer-zydeco celebration of Pete Seeger. Obviously, says Phil Sutcliffe. ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2006
Following Chronicles, the Martin Scorsese documentary and his satellite radio show Bob Dylan's stock in 2006 couldn't be higher. But it's been a long time ...
Jamie T: Panic Prevention (Virgin) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2007
Further Cockney hip hop explorations in the spirit of Dury, Madness, Squeeze. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2007
Stung by the exit of Peter Gabriel, slandered by punk and riven with insecurities, Genesis survived '70s prog to become the biggest band of the ...
The Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood: Ronnie Wood
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2007
TO BE A Rolling Stone is a singular occupation. Last autumn, the phone rang at Ronnie Wood's Manhattan lodgings. Hello, it's Hillary Clinton. She said, ...
Comment by Phil Sutcliffe, Yahoo! Music, 16 July 2007
THAT PRINCE CHAP, he does like to lob a spanner in the music-industry works. It's record shop chains he's upset this time. They're calling him ...
Profile by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2007
PRINCE JUST stood the music industry on its ear again. You can tell because they're saying he's gone barmy, just like they did when he ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2008
Bodies jerk and brains overheat down at the intellectual disco. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2008
SOUNDCHECK. Not long now; the comeback gig's only three hours away. But they don't look nervous. Even when their faces appear in enormous close-up on ...
Bob Dylan: Suze Rotolo: A Freewheelin' Time – A Memoir Of Greenwich Village In The Sixties
Book Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2008
Who's that girl? One reason Dylan loved the Freewheelin' cover girl was she "could keep secrets". Now she's written a book — and still kept ...
Portishead is reunited and ready to play in the desert
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Los Angeles Times, 25 Spring 2008
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND — As Portishead takes the carefully backlighted stage at the ancient, tatty Manchester Apollo, heavy shadows fall across the band's members. The concert ...
Nick Cave, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Grinderman: Nick Cave: King of Pain
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 2009
"TEA? PIECE OF CAKE?" says Nick Cave civilly. After an earlier on-tour interview at the Malmaison Hotel, Manchester, he's invited MOJO to his office, a ...
Pete Seeger: The Voice Of America
Comment by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2009
WHEN PETE SEEGER, the man Bruce Springsteen calls "the father of American folk music", walks on stage at Madison Square Garden on May 3 for ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2009
WILL OLDHAM could never make it as an Old Testament prophet. Despite the beard, the hair and the intensity, the atheism would always let him ...
Billie Holiday: 'Strange Fruit' At 70
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2009
SEVENTY YEARS AGO this month Billie Holiday released 'Strange Fruit'; man's inhumanity to man made manifest in precisely three minutes, 12 scalding lines, inspired by ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2009
JUST 29 YEARS into Depeche Mode's evolution from hoppity-boppity three-minute wonders of Futurism to global phenomenon of electronic rock and here's sempiternal hit songwriter Martin ...
Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen: "Hello, Cleveland!"
Comment by Phil Sutcliffe, Yahoo! Music, 12 June 2009
COMMUNICATION WITH a large audience is a tricky business. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2009
THE FALL IS A PRETTY comprehensive break-up album. Norah Jones has broken up with Lee Alexander, for eight years her boyfriend and double-bassist and, on ...
The Police, Stewart Copeland: Stewart Copeland
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2009
YOU'D THINK Stewart Copeland might have taken a break after the Police reunion tour — 158 gigs, 921,000 paying customers, $297 million gross. ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2009
THE SMALL, GRIZZLED man in the check shirt indicated he'd like a cigarette. The small, curly-haired, young man sitting opposite handed him a Raleigh. The ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2010
"I DESPISE THE values of the rock music industry, for the most part," Gerry Rafferty tells MOJO as he launches his comeback into said biz ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2010
BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE and everybody inside has their winter coats on too, even though 60 of us are crammed together in Sunderland's most bijou ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2010
"WE DON'T shy away from the fire, us McGarrigle-Wainwrights," Rufus Wainwright laughs. "We're made of stern stuff." ...
John Hiatt, Little Village: Hello Goodbye: John Hiatt and Little Village
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2010
WE CONVENED at Ry [Cooder]'s house in Santa Monica. Set up some amps in a ground-floor room which opened out on to his garden. ...
Steve Winwood: Maida Vale Studios, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2010
Musicianship gets in the way of music as BBC studio with a great face for radio hosts revered veteran. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2010
HE'S 66, IT'S 54 years since he first sang in public, and 41 since he captivated Woodstock, so Joe Cocker says he's slightly bemused that ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2011
A GOLDEN RICH GUITAR PHRASE pulses out warmth and beauty and Neil Young keens "I want to live/I want to give/I've been a miner for ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2011
A GREAT SONGWRITER'S imagination knows no bounds. Take Paul Simon. His 70th birthday is coming up in October and his musical and verbal cornucopia of ...
Mick Taylor, Ronnie Wood: Saving the 100 Club
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2011
"RONNIE WOOD was one of the first musicians I ever met," says Mick Taylor, seated deep in the murk of the 100 Club. "The Cherry ...
Derek & The Dominos: Derek and the Dominos: The Story of Layla
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2011
NOTE: This is a slightly modified version of the original MOJO piece. ...
Profile by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2011
SIGNIFICANTLY OR NOT, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's best known product/gift to the world, Transcendental Meditation, was trademarked — and "TM" is a TM too, along with ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 2011
"YEEEEOW," THE GUITAR howled and groaned, the band went dumdum, dumdum, and "Wild thing!" Reg Presley breathed and sighed… and across the table in this ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2011
"THEY shake until they break bones, whack their bodies around," hollers slick-suit, sweat-soaked soul-rock frontman Ty Taylor, talking up the effect Vintage Trouble have on ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2011
"I FEEL WE'RE here to help each other and make this existence meaningful," says Abigail Washburn, skyping from Nashville. You couldn't begin to guess the ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2011
"NEXT TIME YOU see me I might have a full head of hair," says Peter Gabriel — which would be a surprise, because he's been ...
Loudon Wainwright III: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2011
"LOOK WHAT can happen!" grins Loudon Wainwright III, examining then-and-now portraits on the lid of his career-spanning box set, 40 Odd Years. In 1970 he's ...
Field Music: Work in Progress: Field Music
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2011
THE BREWIS BROTHERS have worked away all year on (the provisionally-titled) FM4 and they're done bar tricky bits like naming the songs, which they fret ...
Bruce Springsteen: Wrecking Ball
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2012
THE WESTERN WORLD'S in economic grief and the poor get the dirty end of the stick. Er, Bruce? ...
Rufus Wainwright: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2012
WHAT WAS ON Rufus Wainwright's mind while making his new album, the sparkly, pop-ish, Mark Ronson-produced Out Of The Game? Only this. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 2012
"TEA ANYONE?" says Rumer from the doorway of her beach hut. "Plenty of sandwiches left." Dazed by the mad March sun, her audience of biz ...
Ian Gillan: Ian Gillian on Jesus Christ Superstar
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2012
"TIM RICE MADE the call to Deep Purple's management. Apparently, he thought of me for Jesus when he heard 'Child In Time' (Concerto For Group ...
David Bowie: Bowie at Live Aid
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, January 2013
EVERYBODY REMEMBERS that Queen stole the show at Live Aid, but it's only insiders like "event co-ordinator" Pete Smith who know how David Bowie saved ...
Woody Guthrie: House of Earth ***
Book Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2013
America's greatest folkie turns out to be such a wonderfully weird "novelist" he needs inverted commas, says Phil Sutcliffe ...
The Beatles: I Was A Beatlemaniac
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, May 2013
I DIDN'T GET Elvis because I didn't get sex. Well, that was 1956 and I was eight. But The Beatles… ...
Free, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones: Andy Johns 1952-2013
Obituary by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2013
ANDY JOHNS lived rock'n'roll, whether that meant delicately dangling microphones over a banister at country house studio Headley Grange to get the sound of John ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, June 2013
SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST, "the world's leading music industry event". Depeche Mode are onstage in a conference room at Austin Convention Center answering questions about the ...
The Eagles: History Of The Eagles: The Story Of An American Band ****
Film/DVD/TV Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2013
How did these guys ever write 'Peaceful Easy Feeling'? Candid, rarely self-serving rock doc reveals The Eagles, heart, soul, warts and all, says Phil Sutcliffe ...
The Rolling Stones at Locarno Ballroom, Stevenage, 1 April 1964
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 2013
MY FIRST GIG. How lucky can you get? All through 1963 the Beatles had opened it up for post-war, ration-book teens. Then the Stones' third ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 2014
YOUNG KATE. I sat across from her in EMI offices and Abbey Road Studios for around seven hours, 1979-89, asking awkward questions and getting awkward, ...
Bob Dylan: Cover Star: Bob Dylan
Comment by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2014
BOB DYLAN DOES covers like a constant wash cycle of the soul, inspiration to aspiration to fulfilment. Then repeat. Until death us do part… ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2015
'From Me to You' #1 in: UK Released: April 11, 1963 ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Ties That Bind – The River Collection
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2015
ON HIS FIFTH E Street Band album, Springsteen still struggled "to gain the knowledge of how to make records". But this sense of technical difficulty ...
Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2015
NOTE: This piece appeared in Mojo 265, in an enclosed 52-page "book" entitled Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series. ...
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