Stevie Chick
Stevie Chick has been writing about music for ten years, contributing to such titles as MOJO, The Guardian, Plan B, London Lite, Kerrang!, Arena, Melody Maker, Careless Talk Costs Lives, NME and Sleazenation. He edited the underground music magazine Loose Lips Sink Ships with photographer and musician Steve Gullick, and his book Psychic Confusion: The Story Of Sonic Youth was published by Omnibus in 2007. His life is made all the sweeter thanks to the music of Stevie Wonder, Sebadoh, J Dilla, 8-Eyed Spy, The White Stripes, Aretha Franklin and The Lord High Fixers, and the ever-purring presence of his cat, Chang. His favourite colour is orange, and he wears a size 9 Converse lo-top.
95 articles
List of articles in the library by artist
Amy Winehouse: Frank (Island) ****
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, January 2004
Stunning, hilarious debut album from UK soul chanteuse. ...
And You Will Know Us By The...: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 2 March 2002
They've been banned from every venue in their hometown, alienated the alt-rock underground by signing to a major label, and confused audiences the world over ...
Bad Brains, Minor Threat: Ian Mackaye meets Bad Brains and invents hardcore
Retrospective by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 14 June 2011
NO MERE THREE-CHORD punk dullards, Washington DC's Bad Brains had chops to spare. They'd started as jazz-fusion quintet Mind Power, worshipping at the altar of ...
The BellRays: Maximum Rock 'N' Roll
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 11 May 2002
Praying for gasoline-fuelled garage punk fired-up with Truth and Attitude? The Bellrays might just be here to save you... ...
Mary J. Blige: The Mary Changed: Mary J. Blige: Mary (MCA)
Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 21 August 1999
THE LATE-'90S HAVE BEEN something of a golden period for female-fronted soul/R&B music. ...
The Bluetones: Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 9 October 1999
UNHIP HOORAY! ...
Review and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, March 2013
Noticed in the "not so important" tray of rock's celestial dead letter office: the noise-drenched pop genius of Brainiac. ...
Bright Eyes: That Vision Thing
Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, April 2007
As Bright Eyes he's spent half his 27 years as the boozy Dylan of disaffected youth. On the eve of a new album, Stevie Chick ...
Jeff Buckley: Sketches (For My Sweetheart The Drunk) (Epic)
Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 16 May 1998
YOUR INITIAL thoughts as you listen to this — the first posthumous release from mercurial troubadour Jeff Buckley (who drowned in the Mississippi last May) ...
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 28 October 2010
IT'S THE CONTRASTS between Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, clearly visible from any seat in the Barbican tonight, that you notice first. Campbell, stage left, ...
Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 12 September 2005
Fresh US hip-hop on a bucolic tip ...
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Plan B, June 2004
I WANT TO BELIEVE in impossible things. I want to believe in true love in a cynical world. I want to believe that, yes, Andy ...
Comets On Fire, Julian Cope: Comets On Fire/Julian Cope: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Plan B, February 2005
EVEN THOUGH THE rock star's wearing denim jeans, a strong waft of leather-kekkedness has wandered idly to Seats 2 & 3, Row E, Upper Stalls. ...
Common: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 13 January 2001
HEADY ON A diet of wigga-impressing gangsta-rap and wall-to-wall Eminem, some critics have a tendency to write off Chicago's master of the 'conscious' rhyme as ...
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, Plan B, June 2004
Graham Coxon just wasn't made for these times. It's OK — the fairies are keeping an eye on him. ...
D'Angelo: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 22 February 2015
HE MAY BE a soulful innovator, but there has always been a strong traditionalism in D'Angelo's music, and he begins tonight by tapping into a ...
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, June 2013
Corrupted from birth by Lou Reed, driven by his own otherness and "music that sounds haunted", Deerhunter's Bradford Cox is the most intense, extraordinary, outspoken ...
Dinosaur Jr: Back From Extinction: Dinosaur Jr And The Annals Of Indie-Rock
Comment by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 18 August 2005
FUNNY HOW THINGS change. Only a year ago, the idea of Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis and Lou Barlow burying their legendarily blood-splattered hatchet was laughable. ...
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, 2011
Laconic, guitar-heavy masterpiece from Dinosaur Jr.'s second-wind. ...
Dinosaur Jr.: Dinosaur Jr: Diary Of A Mad Band
Retrospective and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, May 2005
Inspired by Sabbath, Hardcore and Oi!, Dinosaur Jr lit the late '80s with their fireball rock. ...
The Dirtbombs: The Beach, Brighton
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Plan B, October 2004
ALL WE CAN HEAR is the jackhammer beat, drummers Ben Blackwell and Patrick Pantano pummelling the traps with hypnotic, metronomic klang, cowbell and bass drum ...
The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Michael Franti, Spearhead: A Q&A With Michael Franti
Interview by Stevie Chick, unpublished, Spring 2001
MICHAEL FRANTI has been one of the most consistently insightful, incisive, and intelligent voices in politicised pop music for almost 15 years now. ...
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster: Gorllla Warfare
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 18 January 2003
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster were reared on violence, vandalism and far, far too many drugs. Join them in their world of darkness and, er, ...
Foo Fighters: "Touring the UK? It Feels Great Every Time!"
Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, December 2005
2005 HAS BEEN, in the words of guitarist Nate Mendel, 'really fucking chaotic' for the Foo Fighters. First, there was In Your Honour, recorded in ...
Foo Fighters, Nirvana: Dave Grohl
Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, July 2005
Grooving on Led Zep, dossing with mud-wrestlers, he joined the "fucking dark" world of Nirvana a goofy naif and left it a rock star. "I ...
Girls Against Boys: ULU, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 20 June 1998
THE SATANIC VERSUS ...
Girls Against Boys, The Icarus Line, The Von Bondies, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: South By Southwest
Report and Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 6 April 2002
Deep in the heart of Texas, the Icarus Line are being lynched by the locals, the dwarves are getting their kits off, and Courtney Love ...
Grandaddy: The Monarch, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 21 February 1998
A LESSON in not listening to The Man, who would have you believe that bands like Grandaddy, stretching their thrift-store synths way beyond their limits ...
Grandaddy, Super Furry Animals: Super Furry Animals, Grandaddy: Academy, Manchester
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 23 May 1998
CREATURE COMFORTS ...
Macy Gray: Embassy Rooms, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 15 May 1999
SHE STANDS apart, unmistakable. It's like she's from another planet, another dimension, she's so different. Different from her vacu-formed backing band, who look and sound ...
Guided By Voices: Fading Captain: Guided by Voices Head Into The Sunset
Interview by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 11 November 2004
GEARING UP FOR what will be his last tour with the band that won him his unlikely fame, Robert Pollard is in a reflective mood. ...
Guided By Voices: The Captain Never Fades: Guided By Voices Grows Sweeter with Time
Interview by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 20 June 2002
ROBERT POLLARD HAS fronted slanted 'n' enchanted prog-punk bubblegum merchants Guided By Voices for two decades, and writing songs, he claims, "since I was eight ...
Guided By Voices: Don't give up the day job
Retrospective and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 5 January 2012
Riven by addictions and family problems, Guided By Voices' late blooming was a double-edged sword. So why, after 15 years, has the classic lineup reunited? ...
Guided By Voices: Fleece & Firkin, Bristol
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 30 October 1999
YOU KNOW the drill by now: 30-something schoolteacher, obsessed equally with The Beatles, The Who, and Budweiser, bashes out neo-psych nuggets with similarly wasted wastrels ...
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, September 2004
"THIS IS THE ballad of Guided By Voices," reflected Robert Pollard poignantly on the band's 1996 semi-official bootleg Jellyfish Reflector, introducing 'Don't Stop Now', a ...
Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 5 September 1998
COURTNEY LOVE is performing the most outrageous and unexpected act of an outrageous, unexpected life: surviving. Her rewriting of 'Miss World' on Hole's last tour ...
The Isley Brothers: 10 Of The Best
Guide by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 7 January 2014
1. 'Shout (Parts 1 & 2)' The Brothers Isley (Kelly, Rudy and Ron) started out singing gospel music before embarking upon a pop career that would ...
The Jungle Brothers: Jungle Brothers: Metropole Hotel, Cork
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 20 June 1998
A FEW YEARS back, while the world fell as one for the deftly jazzy, pro-Afro delights of A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, ...
Alicia Keys: The New Priestess Of Soul
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, March 2013
Raised in Hell's Kitchen and classically trained, Alicia Keys was a teenage musical misfit who tried her best "to be a boy". Over a decade ...
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, November 2016
Two years ago, in crisis, doubting his worth and dismissed by his own label. Then he started to sing about that uncertainty, and everything changed. ...
Interview by Stevie Chick, Loose Lips Sink Ships, February 2004
When was your first time in jail?"I was twelve years old... It was for shoplifting. Shoplifting booze, heh heh heh."Have you always been attracted to ...
Lauryn Hill: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 12 June 1999
WE DO NEED MiSEDUCATION ...
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 17 February 2001
THE SOUND BEGINS as a whisper, builds into murmur, stretches into a babble. ...
The Low Anthem: The Folk-Rockers Who Sing About Darwin
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 4 February 2010
"I HOPE PEOPLE don't think we're just relics," says Ben Knox Miller, sincerely, dressed in a jacket fashioned from an old burlap flour sack, and ...
The Mars Volta: Frances The Mute
Review by Stevie Chick, Plan B, February 2005
A thing of gaudy glory and ensnaring riddles that returns all the concentration you invest in it. ...
Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, March 2004
United in a love of Bjork, Syd Barrett and Lenny Bruce, The Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler and Omar Rodriguez have survived heroin abuse and self-destruction ...
Mastodon: Blood, Sweat and Beards: Mastodon
Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 27 March 2009
IN THE TWO DECADES and change since Metallica's landmark Master of Puppets album debuted, heavy metal has charted an ascendant course, from derided, marginalised and ...
Mastodon: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 11 December 2017
A triumphant blend of brutal nosebleed thrash, furious prog-style epics and multi-part harmonies exhilarates the hardcore faithful. ...
Curtis Mayfield: 10 of the best
Guide by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 5 August 2015
Deploying sweet soul and blistering funk – and pouring his gorgeous, honeyed falsetto over it all – Curtis Mayfield veered between breezy optimism and hard-edged ...
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 10 July 2018
The fake plastic shrubs on stage have more charisma than Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser in this understated, underwhelming set. ...
Mobb Deep: Murda Muzik (Loud/Epic)
Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 11 September 1999
IN QUEENSBRIDGE, NYC, when someone gets shot, they generally don't get up. Your homey isn't out drinking 40s and smoking blunts; he's laying on a ...
Van Morrison: The Prophet Speaks
Review by Stevie Chick, Metro, 4 December 2018
NOVEMBER MARKED the 50th anniversary of Van Morrison's masterpiece, Astral Weeks, but for the longest time, the artist formerly known as Van The Man might ...
Van Morrison: The Prophet Speaks (Caroline International)
Review by Stevie Chick, Metro, 4 December 2018
NOVEMBER MARKED the 50th anniversary of Van Morrison's masterpiece, Astral Weeks, but for the longest time, the artist formerly known as Van The Man might ...
Mos Def: Mercy, mercy me: Mos Def: The New Danger (Universal/Island) ****
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, November 2004
A troubled man rapping from the rubble: the return of Mos Def ...
Mos Def: Black On Both Sides (Rawkus)
Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 20 November 1999
DESPITE HIP-HOP being commercially and creatively stronger than ever, the political content of rap is at an all-time low. ...
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, November 2004
THIS ISN'T the same young actor/poet/rapper who stared confidently out from the sleeve of his debut, 1999's Black On Both Sides, scion of the new ...
Mos Def: Are You Def Or Somefink?
Interview by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 20 January 2000
Er, yes, actually. Mos Def, Brooklyn rapper, dontcha know… ...
My Morning Jacket: Astoria, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Evening Standard, 25 September 2006
JAMMING IS A justly maligned practice in rock, too often the last refuge of self-indulgent musos running low on inspiration. ...
Interview by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 15 July 2000
Som Wardner is no ordinary rock star-in-waiting — his granddad has a road named after him! — but then My Vitriol are no ordinary class ...
Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, February 2005
FIVE YEARS. It's a long time by most people's standards, but when such a period passes between albums by Nine Inch Nails, the turbulent electro-noir ...
Nirvana: With The Lights Out (Geffen)
Review by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 18 November 2004
POSTHUMOUS RELEASES FROM from departed artists often flail to do the impossible – to provide the music so violently and abruptly silenced by, say, Jeff ...
Report and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 7 December 2019
A new series of Slow Burn re-examines the deaths of two of music's biggest stars. "We still haven't had closure," says its host. ...
Peaches: The Teaches Of Peaches (Kitty-Yo)
Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 16 September 2000
THE MUSIC — harsh shards of electronic fuzz, coupled with unforgiving whiplash beats — sounds like ATR's Alec Empire playing lounge music for a San ...
Natalie Prass: The Lexington, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 29 January 2015
DURING A MOMENTARY delay between songs, Nashville singer-songwriter Natalie Prass looks to the audience and, with a genial awkwardness, says: "I feel like I should ...
Corinne Bailey Rae : Corinne Bailey Rae: Who's That Girl
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, June 2006
She's the British R&B sensation who wants to keep it "underground". But can Corinne Bailey Rae convince America's taste-makers without selling her soul? ...
Reigning Sound: Too Much Guitar
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, July 2004
Wracked and wonderful Southern rock'n'soul party at Greg Cartwright's garage. ...
Minnie Riperton: 10 of the best tracks
Guide by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 29 June 2016
She had a five-octave vocal range, inspired Stevie Wonder and gave birth to Maya Rudolph – the tragedy is that this huge musical talent died ...
The Roots: The Tipping Point (MCA) ***
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, August 2004
Philadelphia freedom: A sixth album of adventurous, organic hip hop from the city of brotherly love. By Stevie Chick ...
The Roots: Astoria, London WC2
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 1 May 1999
YEAH, THE Roots are live hip-hop, but that ain't what makes 'em special. What makes The Roots special is just how good their itchy, firebrand ...
The Roots: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, June 2003
Philadelphia's venerated hip hop orchestra deliver a joyous lesson in the genre's elastic embrace ...
RZA, Wu-Tang Clan: RZA: The Digital Revolution
Interview by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 28 November 1998
One minute RZA's producing the Wu-Tang Clan, the next he's writing as his alter ego Bobby Digital, then he's off to star in the movies. ...
Secret Machines: Altered States: Secret Machines' Narcotic Bliss
Interview by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 17 June 2004
"THE FIRST TIME you take acid, or have any kind of a psychedelic experience, from that point on you look at the world a little ...
Shack: Head Masterful: Shack: L2, Liverpool
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 13 November 1999
BACKSTAGE, the band's name is being wielded as a verb — to get "Shacked". As in to be drawn into Shack's chaotic, hedonistic tailwinds. To ...
Sleater-Kinney: Three Times A Ladyman!: Sleater-Kinney: 13th Note, Glasgow
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 5 August 2000
MAKE NO MISTAKE. Sleater-Kinney are incandescent. In the three years since their breakthrough third album, Dig Me Out, saw this corrosive power-trio progress from local ...
Sly & the Family Stone: There's a Riot Goin' On
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, 2009
Dark, troubled and brilliant funk from kaleidoscopic soul-rock legends ...
Spearhead: Jazz Café, Camden, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 30 October 1999
...
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Praise Be!
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 30 March 2002
The planet's coolest band are here to give rock'n'roll back its swagger. This is the gospel according to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion... ...
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 23 March 2002
Forget the hype, the haircuts and the priviliged backgrounds. New York heroes have one thing on their mind: the music... ...
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, 2012
Saturnian jazz godhead leaves Earth’s orbit. ...
Teenage Fanclub: Love In A Cold Climate
Retrospective and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, July 2005
Ladies and gentlemen! Gasp, as Scots prestidigitators the Teenage Fanclub turn base indie guitar slag into romantic pop gold! Gape, as their death-defying story is ...
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 29 March 2017
The prodigious bassist's songs veer between jazz fusion and intimate, soulful pop – augmented live by detours into wild improvisation ...
The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players
Interview by Stevie Chick, The Times, March 2004
"STOOSH OVER, DADDY!""I am stooshing! I'm stooshed over as far as I can... I don't have any more room to stoosh!" ...
Velvet Revolver's Scott Weiland
Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 6 November 2004
THE RIBALD ROCK'N'ROLL spirit of Guns'n'Roses and their ilk has long since evaporated into the smog. Once they owned Sunset, roaring up the strip in ...
The White Stripes: SXSW, Austin Fat Tuesday's, Austin, Texas
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 31 March 2001
THE WHITE STRIPES are quite a sight. ...
White Denim: Between Indie Rock and a Hard Place
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 26 May 2011
"WE'VE TALKED ABOUT starting another band and just writing really straightforward, boring pop songs," says White Denim bassist Steve Terebecki, sitting in a London bar. ...
Matthew E. White: Lexington, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 24 January 2013
"THIS ONE'S a groover," smiles a hirsute, check-shirted Matthew E White, looking like the Kings of Leon's friendly stoner cousin as he leads his five-piece ...
The White Stripes: The Truth In Red And White: The White Stripes' Romanticised Reality
Comment by Stevie Chick, The Stranger, 4 August 2005
"I SAW THIS documentary about a classical guitarist," Jack White told me recently. "He was playing Bach and Mozart, these really ridiculously complicated pieces, but ...
The White Stripes: Detroit's Rock Heroes Remembered
Retrospective by Stevie Chick, The Guardian, 5 February 2011
THERE WAS AN outpouring of grief this week when the White Stripes announced they were to split. Stevie Chick explains their magic while photographer Ewen ...
The White Stripes: White Noise, White Heat: The White Stripes: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 4 August 2001
HE'S THE don of Detroit, the god of garage, the man reclaiming rock'n'roll from false-hearted cheats and whining, hollow charlatans. ...
The White Stripes: De Stijl (Sympathy For The Record Industry)
Review by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 21 April 2001
Two-piece brother and sister band kick up fine rock'n'roll ruckus ...
The White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan
Review by Stevie Chick, Plan B, June 2005
THERE WAS almost a point, deep into Elephant, where you could sense something slipping away from Jack White. ...
The White Stripes: Heart of Darkness
Profile and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, August 2005
Join us for a tale of extraordinary madness as we sail through the Brazilian rainforest deep into the Heart Of Darkness. There we find the ...
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever To Tell
Review and Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, May 2003
IF YOU KNOW of them at all yet, more likely it's via constant, obvious press proclamations of their "cool", than the EP and single's worth ...
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Lust For Life
Interview by Stevie Chick, Kerrang!, 20 February 2003
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: sex, desperation and glamour, Big Apple style ...
Yo La Tengo: All Hail Melodic Lo-Fi Mavericks Yo La Tengo!
Interview by Stevie Chick, New Musical Express, 11 March 2000
TEN-GALLON FACTS (YES, IT'S THE BIG ONES!) ...
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