INCLUDES

15-TRACK

CD!
 discover the best new releases

Gulp Jake Shears The Proclaimers Elvis Presley - Where No

All Good Wishes Jake Shears Angry Cyclist One Stands Alone
out 3 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl
Gulp are Super Furry Animals’ The dynamic debut solo album The Proclaimers at the peak of their This album celebrates the power
Guto Pryce, and Lindsey Leven. from Scissor Sisters front man. songwriting prowess. Instantly catchy and passion of Elvis’ gospel
The band make mini sun-soaked Includes the singles Creep City hooks and melodies, gorgeous close recordings. Includes a reimagined
and Kraut-pop epics. and Big Bushy Mustache. harmonies and great arrangements. duet with daughter, Lisa Marie Presley.

Giant Sand Foxing Kodaline Still Corners

Returns To Valley Of Rain Nearer My God Politics Of Living Slow Air
out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl
Valley Of Rain was Giant Sand’s debut Foxing deliver an album that is, Third album from the Dublin-based Evokes the atmospheric sounds
album recorded in 1983, eventually without a doubt, their most quartet whose blend of stadium they are known for, Slow Air is full
released in 1985. This is a new immediate, complex, sonically rock has drawn comparisons with of tension and brooding, wrapped
re-recording of that classic album. grand and focused work yet. Keane, Coldplay and U2. in a reverb laden dream.

The Vryll Society The Beths Ethan Johns With The Black Odetta Hartman
Course Of The Satellite Future Me Hates Me Eyed Dogs - Anamnesis Old Rockhounds Never Die
out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl out 10 August on 2CD & vinyl out 10 August on CD & vinyl
The Vryll Society’s debut is hotly The Beths from New Zealand Anamnesis is the 4th studio album Odetta’s second album once again
anticipated thanks to the promise occupy a warm, energetic sonic by multi instrumentalist Ethan Johns, shows off her heart-stopping voice
the band have shown through their space between joyful hooks, sun- recorded with his band The Black and wide-ranging instrumental
blistering live sets and recent singles. soaked harmonies and acerbic lyrics. Eyed Dogs. talent.

home of entertainment
 CON T EN T S
LONDON ) MEMPHIS ) NEWL ANDS CORNER

SEPTEMBER 2018 Issue 298

FEATURES
32 OHN
McLAUGHLIN How he
remade guitar-playing with Miles
Davis and The Mahavisnhu Orchestra,
found inner peace, but kind of
bungled that jam with Jimi.
38 TROJAN RECORDS
The label that first took Jamaican
music to the world is 50. Lee ‘Scratch’
Perry, Chris Blackwell and Don Letts
kick off the party.
44 THE WAR ON
DRUGS Against the odds,
Adam Granduciel’s heartland
shoegaze rock can pack out London’s
O2 Arena. So can he please now
stop worrying?
50 BLAZE FOLEY With an
Ethan Hawke biopic imminent, it’s
time to discover Townes Van Zandt’s
even more messed-up pal, his
heartbreaking songs and story.
“Prince had 56 PRINCE His crazy, creative
these doubts zenith, 1982-1986, by his iconic band,
The Revolution. Plus: behind the first
and insecurities. full release from The Vault.

He was human, 66 NICO Thirty years since her

untimely death, we revisit the ice
The Prince Estate/Allen Beaulieu

y’know?” maiden of art-pop’s bizarre final

years, in our new look MOJO
REVOLUTION BASSIST Eyewitness feature.
MARK BROWN, P 56 70 PAUL WELLER
Celebrating King Mod at 60,
unplugged but unbowed, with input
from key allies. On the menu: class,
culture, Val Doonican and more.

MOJO 3
Swamp Dogg on
love, loss and
AutoTune: What
Goes On p17.

REGULARS
11 ALL BACK TO MY PLACE
Glen Matlock, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell and Paul
Hartnoll from Orbital invite us in.
28 REAL GONE
DJ Fontana, Jon Hiseman, Nick Knox, Jackson
family patriarch Joe and others, we salute you.
126 ASK FRED
How many covers of the same song on the
charts at the same time?!
130 HELLO GOODBYE
In ’67 they joined forces to conquer. Then in ’85
it blew up. Peter Cetera remembers Chicago.

WHAT GOES ON!

14 DANNY KIRWAN
Fleetwood Mac bandmates Christine McVie
and Jeremy Spencer pay tribute to their
sublime former guitarist but a troubled soul.
17 SWAMP DOGG
The salty gramps of R&B satire has plunged into
AutoTune. Who’s been helping him? Plus a side
order of politics, LSD and recording with mum.
18 EDWYN COLLINS
Glasgow indie rock’s principal carries on his
return to creative health with a new LP. Read on
for punk thoughts, lyric writing and more.

The Cure go 20 SEYMOUR STEIN

back and forth: He co-founded Sire records and now, in
Lives, p116. Confidential mood, he talks difficult artists,
getting in early and spurning the bandwagon.
22 AMY WINEHOUSE
A lavish new book presents intimate shots of the
late meteor of soul-jazz by her friend BlakeWood,
who lived and travelled with her from 2008-9.

MOJO FILTER
84 NEW ALBUMS White Denim
perform, Interpol maraud, Tomberlin and more.
100 REISSUES Teenage Fanclub on vinyl,
the Wrecking Crew, Pretty Things and more.
112 BOOKS The Greeks have a sound for it, the
Dead, Matt Johnson, Kenney Jones and more.
114 SCREEN How the New Orleans music
community bounced back from Katrina.
Still playing five
songs at once:
White Denim,
116 LIVES The Cure on the South Bank, David
Lead Album, p84. Byrne in west London.

THIS MONTH'S CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE...

Ben Thompson Tom Oldham Will Hodgkinson
Ben has been waiting to inter- “Awaiting Paul Weller on the hill- In March 2018, Will found
view John McLaughlin ever since side at Newlands Corner,” says himself in a warehouse in Austin
Mahavishnu’s Birds Of Fire blew photographer Oldham, “we were, to celebrate the launch of Blaze,
his mind aged 13. Meantime, lights on stands, laptop and cam- Ethan Hawke’s film on the out-
Alamy, Victor Frankowski

he’s been a MOJO contributor eras ready – only for the heavens law country singer Blaze Foley.
since Issue 2, and co-written to open, completely drench me, my It led to this month’s feature for
memoirs with (among others) assistants and all my equipment. MOJO, to which he has contribut-
Steve Jones, Russell Brand and Even looking like a drowned rat, it ed since 2002, while writing
John McEnroe. Next book? The was still a proper honour to shoot books including childhood
life-story of Evel Knievel’s son. Paul.” See the feature, page 70. memoir The House Is Full Of Yogis.

4 MOJO
 discover the best new releases

Mulatu Astatke Nathan Salsburg Dee Snider Phantastic Ferniture

Afro Latin Soul Vols 1 & 2 Third For The Love Of Metal Phantastic Ferniture
out now on CD & vinyl out now on CD & vinyl out 27 July on CD & vinyl out 27 July on CD & vinyl
Official reissue of Mulatu Astatke’s Stunning third album by from one The face and voice of the Self-titled debut from Julia Jacklin’s
early classics from 1966, recorded of his generation’s most gifted and legendary Twisted Sister is back new band - an amazing collection
as The Ethiopian Quintet. idiosyncratic acoustic guitarists. sounding more ferocious than ever. of garage pop.

Tarja The Spitfires Israel Nash Amanda Shires

Act II: Live Year Zero Lifted To The Sunset
out 27 July on CD & vinyl out 27 July on CD & vinyl out 27 July on CD & vinyl out 3 August on CD & vinyl
This release is split into two The Spitfires are a Watford based Lifted finds Nash continuing Critically acclaimed singer-
chapters, the first recorded at 4-piece, who take in a wide range his tradition of creating a sonic songwriter and violinist Shires
London’s Metropolis Studios of influences from soul, reggae experience that is at once both is back, produced again by
and the the second in Milan. and ska. vast and intimate. Grammy winning Dave Cobb.

Elephant Micah Lucero Michael Nau - Michael Nau Kathryn Joseph

Genericana Among The Ghosts & The Mighty Thread From When I Wake
out 3 August on CD & vinyl out 3 August on CD & vinyl out 3 August on CD & vinyl The Want Is
This is a new mutant variety of Lucero celebrate their 20 th Michael returns with an expanded out 10 August on CD & vinyl
Elephant Micah, better suited to anniversary with southern gothic full band line-up on this amazing The follow-up to Kathryn’s sublime
survive the cultural climate of the inspired vignettes as the basis of new album. Includes Less Than 2015 debut which took home the
moment in so-called Trump’s America. this rockier sounding album. Positive. Scottish Album of the Year award.

home of entertainment
 REGGAE
NUGGETS
A 50 th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
STARRING ALTON ELLIS, THE HEPTONES,
PRINCE FAR I, LEE ‘SCRATCH’ PERRY,
KEN BOOTHE AND MORE

01 ALTON ELLIS 02 THE HEPTONES 03 PRINCE FAR I 04 RICKY & BUNNY

I AM STILL IN LOVE COOL RASTA (UNDER) HEAVY BUSH WEED
WITH YOU A pioneering Jamaican vocal trio, by MANNERS CORN TRASH
To begin: the gentle lilt of Alton Ellis, the mid-‘70s Leroy Sibbles, Earl A former security guard at Joe Gibbs’ Bunny Rugs had sung with Inner
proving his credentials as the Morgan and Barry Llewellyn had studio, and bouncer at Studio One, Circle in the late ’60s before
Godfather of Rocksteady. Ellis first begun to turn their gorgeous Michael James Williams came to heading to New York for a few
recorded this soulful classic in ’67, harmonies away from slicker pop prominence as a chanter; the self- years. By the mid ’70s, though,
reggae and towards the service of styled Voice Of Thunder toasting he was back in Kingston and
before the riddim was copied for
Jah. Hence the spiritual roots of Cool over dubbed-out backing tracks recording for Lee Perry; here
Althea & Donna’s Number One, produced, in this case, by Gibbs
Uptown Top Ranking. This version Rasta, and the enduring message at alongside reggae scion Ricky
himself. The title refers to a state of Grant, nephew of another
of I Am Still In Love With You dates its core: “Let no badness come into emergency and curfew enforced in
from a decade later. your head!” legendary producer, Leslie Kong.
Jamaica before the 1976 election.
I Am Still In Love With You Girl by Alton Ellis published Cool Rasta by The Heptones Leroy Sibbles Universal (Under) Heavy Manners by Prince Far I, Joe Gibbs, Bush Weed Corn Trash by Bunny & Ricky, Lee
by New Town Sound Ltd., Sparta Florida Music Group Music Publishing Ltd. Harry Johnson (Producer); The Michael Williams Greensleeves Publishing Ltd./ ‘Scratch’ Perry (Producer); Bunny & Ricky (Primary
Ltd 1977 Sanctuary Records Group Ltd., a BMG Heptones (Primary Artist) 1976 Sanctuary Records Beatback Ltd. Joel A. Gibson 1976 Sanctuary Artist) 1975 Sanctuary Records Group Ltd.,
Company Group Ltd., a BMG Company Records Group Ltd., a BMG Company a BMG Company
Tim Barrow/urbanimage.tv, Rico D Rozario/urbanimage.tv, Getty (6)

09 THE 10 THE BELTONES 11 VAL BENNETT 12 KEN BOOTHE

INSPIRATIONS NO MORE HEARTACHES BABY BABY (5–10–15 NOW I KNOW
TIGHTEN UP Not to be confused with the HOURS) A skipping, effervescent fellow
A cornerstone of the Trojan Empire, 1950s doo-wop group – nor, A veteran on the Kingston scene, traveller of Alton Ellis (the two toured
Tighten Up became the swinging indeed, a Texan Oi band of the saxophonist Bennett had his own the UK together as early as 1967),
theme tune of the label’s hugely same name – The Beltones were orchestra in the 1940s, before Ken Boothe became an international
popular budget comps when it protégés of Harry J, the noted backing Prince Buster and becoming pop star when his cover of Bread’s
kicked off the first volume of Tighten Kingston producer. No More a session regular at the dawn of Everything I Own hit Number 1 in
Up in 1969. Tighten Up was reputedly Heartaches, in fact, was the first reggae. The only producer who the British charts. Here, though,
the first independent production by release on his self-named Harry J got him to sing, however, was Lee is a lovely, Impressions-influenced
Lee Perry, and he briefly renamed the label, a critical reggae side before Perry, most notably on this loping reggae-soul B-side from 1969 (the
duo of Jimmy London and Billy Dyce it was picked up for broader take on 5–10–15 Hours, an R&B flip of It’s Gonna Take A Miracle),
The Untouchables. exposure by Trojan. nugget originally by Ruth Brown dating from Boothe’s time as part
in 1952. of the Leslie Kong stable.
Tighten Up by The Inspirations, Derrick Harriott, No More Heartaches by The Beltones,
Lee Perry, B&C Music Publishing Ltd./Musical Harry Johnson, Cari-Blue Music Ltd./ Baby Baby (5-10-15 Hours) by Val Bennett, Lee Perry, Now I Know by Ken Boothe, Harris Seaton, Universal
Chariot Music, 1968 Sanctuary Records Group Ltd, Westbury Music Ltd. 1968 Sanctuary Records B&C Music Publishing Ltd. 1968 Sanctuary Records Music Publishing Ltd. 1970 Sanctuary Records
a BMG company Group Ltd., a BMG Company Group Ltd., a BMG Company Group Ltd., a BMG Company

6 MOJO
 IFTY YEARS AGO, TROJAN RECORDS BEGAN ITS

F intensive campaign of introducing Jamaican music

to the rest of the world. Hip, well-connected and
extremely fast on their feet, Trojan ensured they heard
the best singles first, and rapidly secured the rights to share
them with an insatiable new audience thousands of miles
from Jamaica. By the summer of 1969, the label was making
inroads into the British mainstream, as Trojan releases of The
Liquidator, Young Gifted And Black, Wonderful World, Beautiful
People, Double Barrel, Pressure Drop, Trenchtown Rock and
countless more transformed reggae from an island sound to
an international phenomenon.
To celebrate Trojan’s golden jubilee, MOJO is honoured
to team up with the rejuvenated label for a deep dive into
their storied catalogue. The result is Reggae Nuggets, a new
treasury of roots, rocksteady, ska and all Jamaican points in
between, featuring Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, The Skatalites, Ken
Boothe, The Heptones, Prince Far I and many more. A half-
century down the line, it’s time to tighten up once again…

05 DENNIS BROWN 06 PHYLLIS DILLON 07 JOHNNY 08 THE ETHIOPIANS

AFRICA (WE WANT WOMAN OF THE OSBOURNE & EVERYTHING CRASH
TO GO) GHETTO THE SENSATIONS Leonard Dillon, Stephen ‘Tough
Bob Marley called Dennis Brown the One of the stranger late-’60s COME BACK DARLING Cock’ Taylor and Aston ‘Charlie’
“Crown prince” of reggae, and his Jamaican careers was enjoyed by Morrison made their name at Studio
A graduate of reggae hothouse the
hybrid of lovers’ elegance and roots Phyllis Dillon, who worked in banking One in the mid ’60s, close associates
Alpha Boys School, Osbourne’s of The Wailers. By the end of the
righteousness had a not dissimilar in the USA, occasionally returning to career really took off in the late ’70s,
potency; see Africa’s parent album, Kingston for recording sessions with decade, the harmony trio were
after a few years away in Canada. working with Carl ‘Sir JJ’ Johnson
Just Dennis (1975), for how effectively producer Duke Reid. Rocksteady
Brown blended the two strains. Only covers of American hits were her Before that, though, there was a and backing band The Caribbeats,
cocaine addiction, perhaps, militated speciality, none better than this late-’60s apprenticeship with concocting tracks that were both
against him achieving Marleyesque passionate, dignified 1969 cover of producer Winston Riley, climaxing exuberant and pointed; Everything
levels of international superstardom. the Marlena Shaw ghetto classic. with this sweetly rousing skank. Crash detailed the strikes that hit
Jamaica in 1968.
Africa (We Want To Go) by Dennis Brown, Harris Woman Of The Ghetto by Phyllis Dillon, Richard Come Back Darling by Johnny Osbourne & The
Seaton, Dennis Brown, Lloyd James, Just Isn’t Music Evans, R.E. Miller, Marlena Shaw, EMI Music Sensations, The Sensations, Johnny Osbourne, Everything Crash by The Ethiopians, Leonard Dillon,
Ltd. 1975 Sanctuary Records Group Ltd., a BMG Publishing Ltd. 1971 Sanctuary Records Group Ltd., Flawsound Music, 1970 Sanctuary Records Group Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd. 1968 Sanctuary
Company a BMG Company Ltd., a BMG Company Records Group Ltd., a BMG Company

13 LEE ‘SCRATCH’ 14 THE CRYSTALITES 15 THE SKATALITES

PERRY I AM THE STOP THAT MAN LATIN GOES SKA
UPSETTER Little is known about The Crystalites, (1969 REMIX)
Before The Black Ark, and The Upsetters, a predominantly instrumental outfit A foundational Jamaican band,
and a revolution in sound that helmed by Derrick Harriott, patron/ The Skatalites had temporarily
reverberated far beyond Kingston, producer of the Crystal label. disbanded by the time Lee Gopthal
Lee Perry existed as a studio dogsbody The Crystalites’ 1970 album, The set up Trojan Records; trombonist
and occasional recording artist for Undertaker, betrayed the influence of Don Drummond was arrested for
various local operations. I Am The Booker T. & The M.G.’s on Kingston’s the murder of his girlfriend in 1965,
Upsetter dates from 1968, and a stint nascent reggae groups. Stop That leading to the band fracturing until a
with producer Joe Gibbs. Soon, they Man, though, is B-side to the single 1974 reunion. Nevertheless, this 1964
would fall out, and The Upsetter would of The Undertaker; a version of ska-jazz classic turned up in remixed
go it alone: his first hit, People Funny another Harriott production, Keith form in 1969, Lester Sterling to the
Boy, was a direct attack on Gibbs. & Tex’s Stop That Train. fore on saxophone.
I Am The Upsetter by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, New Town Stop That Man by The Crystalites, Derrick Harriott, Latin Goes Ska by Lester Sterling & The Skatalites,
Sound Ltd. 1968 Sanctuary Records Group Ltd, Copyright Control, 1969 Sanctuary Records Group Lester Sterling, 1969 Sanctuary Records Group
a BMG company Ltd., a BMG Company Ltd., a BMG Company
Come as you are...

Q Legends: Nirvana Special Collector’s Edition.

ON SALE NOW
Available at Greatmagazines.co.uk/nirvana
 Glen Matlock
ALWAYS A SEX PISTOL
What music are you currently Which musician, other than your-
grooving to? self, have you ever wanted to be?
The Bobby Brown Quartet’s Venus There’s people I admire, but really, I’m
Velvet – the most outrageous, groov- happy in my own skin.
ing late bebop jazz. Mose Allison as What do you sing in the shower?
well, what a great songwriter, and the
(Sings) “What kind of fool am I?” I’m
Faces’ You Can Make Me Dance…,
a big fan of Anthony Newley. There
which is the most ‘up’ song ever, I
were so many things he had a hand
think. And Blank Generation by The
Voidoids. I love Robert Quine’s gui- in. I really liked Muse’s version of
tar playing. The only other guitar Feeling Good, and I thought it was
player I can think of who’s along a Nina Simone song, but it’s by him.
those lines is Derek Bailey. What is your favourite Saturday
What, if push comes to shove, is night record?
your all-time favourite album? Any of the Motown Chartbusters
The Faces’ A Nod Is As Good As A albums – maybe Volume 4, the one
Wink… To A Blind Horse, but I’m in a with the silvery cover.
good mood today, so another day? And your Sunday morning record?
What was the first record you ever Groovin’ by the Young Rascals.
bought? And where did you buy it? Everything about it is uplifting. It puts
I bought The Kinks’ You Really Got a little bit of hope in your heart.
Me and The Beatles’ Twist And Shout Glen Matlock’s Good To Go is out on
EP on the same day, from Radio Mighty Village Records on August 24.
Rentals in Harlesden. I must have He plays The Boisdale Club, Canary
been about nine. I’ve still got them. Wharf from July 30 to August 3.

A LL B AC K TO MY PL AC E
THE STARS REVEAL THE SONIC DELIGHTS GUARANTEED TO GET THEM GOING...

What was the first record you ever

Paul Hartnoll bought? And where did you buy it? Ellie Rowsell
ORBITAL’S CEREBRAL I asked my mum to buy me Wings’ WOLF ALICE’S GUITAR
Live And Let Die when I was in the
RAVER second year of primary school,
AND VOICE
What music are you currently from The Spinning Disc in What music are you currently
grooving to? Sevenoaks. An awesome record! grooving to?
The Dreaming by Kate Bush. I always The one I went into a shop and The new Lykke Li album So Sad So
found it difficult but recently it’s bought myself was Tears Of A Clown Sexy, Sex & Food by Unknown
come into its own. I didn’t like There by The Beat. That was when I Mortal Orchestra, the new Nicki
Goes A Tenner before but then I thought, I want to do that – I don’t Minaj. I’m also rediscovering Blur
realised, Fucking hell, it sounds like know what it is, but I want to do it. and excited to hear more tunes from
the Cardiacs! It definitely has that I still can’t listen to the original. London band Sorry.
post-punk, cranky-pianos-with- Which musician, other than your- What, if push comes to shove, is
odd-chord-progressions thing. And self, have you ever wanted to be? your all-time favourite album?
she sings in all these accents, it’s It’s highly likely it would be one of I just don’t have one, but if I was
fucking mental. But it all works. Madness, the first band I bunked off spend it on CDs, haha! The first
stuck on a desert island I might take
What, if push comes to shove, is school to get a record signed by. I’ll Elephant by The White Stripes. That album I remember adoring was
your all-time favourite album? say Lee Thompson, because I used one’s a favourite. I reckon there’s a Pink’s Missundaztood, and it was
When I’m angry, and thinking about to lie on my back playing air-saxo- song for every emotion in there – it’s probably from Woolworths.
Brexit, Penis Envy by Crass. Wildly phone to Madness records. got Seven Nation Army, It’s True That Which musician, other than your-
prog-punk, so dark and industrial, What do you sing in the shower? We Love One Another, The Hardest self, have you ever wanted to be?
inharmonious but with a weird Button To Button… and it’s perfectly Baby Spice!
The most godawful ear-worms that
graceful beauty, like Bartók or some- nostalgic for me too. What do you sing in the shower?
are stuck in my head – recently, an
thing. And if I’m feeling Zen, Scott What was the first record you ever
old jingle for Weetabix. But I haven’t Ariana Grande’s No Tears Left To
Walker’s Scott 3, all the way. bought? And where did you buy it?
sung it, it’s just gone round and Cry is a good one.
round in my head, haunting me. I dunno actually – my dad bought What is your favourite Saturday
What is your favourite Saturday me all my records. By the time I had night record?
night record? money of my own I didn’t want to
Grimes’ Art Angels, Katy B’s On A
I’ve got a ‘feel-good’ playlist that Mission, Sia, Rihanna. And my girl-
begins with Kim Wilde’s Kids In friends and I will give All Saints’
America, it’s got the Buggles, The “The White One Strike about 20 spins before we
Nolans, Steeleye Span… staying in
is the new going out, remember. Stripes’ head out, too.
And your Sunday morning record?
And your Sunday morning record? Elephant ... a I’ll put on Think Tank by Blur, though
Getty, Wenn, Steve Double

I really like a label called Clay Pipe

Music that puts out electro-folky
song for every I’ve only just discovered it! I might
skip the heavy ones on a Sunday
things. I might play Plinth, Music For
Smalls Lighthouse. It’ll probably be
emotion.” morning, unless it’s still Saturday
night, when I will play them.
Sunday afternoon though. ELLIE ROWSELL
Wolf Alice headline the BBC Radio 1
Orbital’s Monsters Exist is out on ACP on Stage at the Reading & Leeds Festival
September 14. (August 24-26).

MOJO 11
 Academic House,
24-28 Oval Road
Theories,
rants, etc.
London NW1 7DT
Tel: 020 7437 9011
Reader queries: mojoreaders@
bauermedia.co.uk
Subscriber queries: bauer@
subscription.co.uk
General e-mail: mojo@ MOJO welcomes letters for publication. Write to: MOJO Mail, Academic House,
bauermedia.co.uk
Website: mojo4music.com
24-28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DT. NEW E-mail: [email protected]

Editor
John Mulvey
Senior Editor
THERE’S A STRIKING MOMENT NEAR THE
Danny Eccleston end of our interview with Paul Weller this month. Weller is hosting MOJO at his
Art Editor
Mark Wagstaff
studio in rural Surrey, reflecting on his 60th birthday, the 40-odd years of music-
Associate Editor making behind him and, most importantly, the new music he is making right now.
(Production)
Geoff Brown
“I like the feeling that I’m still going forward, that I’ve got a new song on the go,”
Associate Editor he tells David Cavanagh. “Those things are the lifeblood to me.”
(Reviews)
Jenny Bulley
For Weller, and for MOJO, the history of great music is open-ended and con-
Associate Editor stantly evolving; not, emphatically, a closed book. To that end, as we near our
(News)
Ian Harrison
300th issue, we’ve given MOJO a gentle makeover – a quick wash and brush up
Picture Editor – without losing any of the elements cherished by those of you who’ve been with
Matt Turner
Senior Associate Editor
us for so long. Now, our mission should be clearer than ever: to join the dots
Andrew Male between old and new music; to tell compelling stories about an ever-expanding
Associate Deputy
Art Editor
cast of heroes, outliers and youngbloods; and to help you discover the finest
Russell Moorcroft records that are still being made, every month. As the sage Weller articulates, “I
Contributing Editors
Phil Alexander, don’t think your creative mind runs out, as long as you don’t get bogged down by
Keith Cameron,
Sylvie Simmons
your own past and legacy.
For mojo4music.com contact “If you remain open-minded,” he says, “there should be no reason
Danny Eccleston why it stops.”
Thanks for their
help with this issue:
Keith Cameron, Fred Dellar,
Del Gentleman

Among this month’s

contributors:
Martin Aston,Mike Barnes, JOHN MULVEY, EDITOR
Mark Blake,Glyn Brown,
David Cavanagh Stevie Chick,
Andy Cowan,Max Decharné,
Tom Doyle,David Fricke, The whole estate That can’t be a very
Andy Fyfe,Pat Gilbert,
David Hutcheon,Will Hodgkinson,
is being demolished pleasant situation to live in
Jim Irvin,Colin Irwin,David Katz, Thank you, MOJO, for having the courage to Well that was depressing. David Cavanagh’s eight-
James McNair,Ben Myers, attempt the impossible mission of reducing page dissection of a man [Ian McCulloch, MOJO
Chris Nelson,Lucy O’Brien,
Mark Paytress,Andrew Perry, hardcore album conceptualists Pink Floyd’s 297] who appears to be in the later stages of a
David Quantick,Tony Russell, career into a list of only 50 songs [MOJO 296]! breakdown, sequestered in a small, humble semi
Jon Savage,Victoria Segal, I’m considering your work as slightly revisionist, in Woolton, alone and unloved by anyone but
David Sheppard,Michael Simmons,
Mat Snow,Jeff Tamarkin, particularly regarding the reappraisal of Richard his fans. Not sure what it was supposed to be
Ben Thompson,Kieron Tyler, Wright’s important contributions to PF (both as a promoting; an album, a tour or an intervention.
Charles Waring,Paddy Wells, writer and arranger) and their pre-1972 works in I question whether it should have even been
Lois Wilson,Stephen Worthy
general. The ultimate Floyd song you overlooked published. It was lovely to see Will Sergeant get
Among this month’s was Absolutely Curtains, used for the last minutes some ink for a change. Thanks MOJO, I guess you
photographers: of Schroeder’s La Vallée movie. Although credited can’t write about Pink Floyd, The Beatles and Neil
Paul Weller cover: Tom Oldham to the whole group, this is more like a Wright solo Young all the time. Good luck, Mac.
Prince: © Prince Estate/Ed Thrasher.
Allen Beaulieu, Nancy Bundt, number, slightly augmented by Nick’s understated Ian McNabb, via e-mail
Victor Frankowski, Gie Knaeps, percussion rolls. In this piece you can hear the
Tom Sheehan, Chuck Stewart,
Roy Tee, CP Vaughan, Chris Walter,
marriage between the childish toy piano from Is he dangerous?
Larry Williams, Rachael Wright Flaming and the celestial and spiritual keyboards I’ll never understand these people who write inane
appearing in many songs from the later part of their letters to you expressing their outrage that you’ve
MOJO SUBSCRIPTION HOTLINE career. In other words: the soul of Pink Floyd. They dared to praise an artist that they themselves have
were never prog-rockers, but melancholic sound not heard of, and who they assume must therefore
0185 8438884 architects exploring the blues of (in)humanity, be unworthy of coverage. All they’re doing is
For subscription or back issue queries contact CDS
Global on [email protected] desperately in need of the musical counterpoint, exposing their own ignorance and close-mindedness.
To access from outside the UK
Dial: +44 (0)1858 438884
oxygen and warmth provided by Wright. I love discovering artists I’ve never heard of, with
Dag Erik Asbjørnsen, via e-mail a huge back catalogue. It means there’s lots to

12 MOJO
explore! Sometimes this leads to riches so I needed the words of Morrissey – but
Group Managing Director,
(Fela Kuti), and other times it’s a dead- not any more. Advertising
end (Arthur Russell). But that’s why I Andrew Rana, via e-mail Abby Carvosso
Head of Magazine Media
read a music magazine like this. Listening Clare Chamberlain
to music would get boring if I wasn’t I don’t know what Group Commercial Director
Simon Kilby
discovering new stuff all the time. demons you’re fighting Head Of Magazine Brands
Conor Bendle, Canberra, Australia Rachel Flower
About The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine Music Director
Joel Stephan
film [MOJO 297]. In Belgium is
Stay here and let me a famous Flemish cartoon/comic
Mediaplanner
Mollie Smee
sort this out Nero worship: did
Yellow Submarine’s strip called Nero. In De Vliegende
Regional Advertising
Katherine Brown
Re: Dick Rosetti’s letter on Viv Albertine evil flying glove have Handschoen (The Flying Glove, 1957), a Classified Sales Executive
Philip Nessfield
[MOJO 296]. I suppose it’s unthinkable a Belgian antecedent flying glove appears long before the Blue Classified Sales Manager
(see letter, right)? Karen Gardiner
that people who made groundbreaking Meanies’ helper. It must be said the Nero Inserts Manager
music can lose interest in creating and glove is lifeless and radio-controlled, but Simon Buckenham
Production Manager
then dare to show it. The music world would be it flies and helps the baddies by hitting people and Carl Lawrence
a better place without as many careerists, and I’d bringing mayhem. It is something I like to share with Ad Production Controller
Helen Mear
say Viv has more than done her piece (with a small music fans everywhere. Creative Solutions Senior Producer
number of releases; that says volumes.). Frankly, I’d Francis Vercammen, Kontich, Belgium Jenna Herman
Creative Solutions Art Director
rather read her two excellent books than hear music Jon Cresswell
that she wasn’t compelled to create, and I’ll listen to If you want to get yourself Chief Executive
anything she has to say. Leave her alone. smashed to bits, that’s Paul Keenan
Jimmy Holcomb, Mesquite, Texas Group Managing Director
your choice Rob Munro-Hall
Publisher
I don’t care who they At last, at last, at last! Nearly issue 300 and I finally Patrick Horton
Commercial Marketing Director
get the film quote headings! At least I think I have…
put me in with Is it the quite wonderful Merry Christmas Mr.
Liz Martin
Managing Editor
What is the matter with your Rolling Stones Lawrence? Fantastic mag as always – and I hate Danielle O’Connell
MOJO CD and Honours
reviewer, John Mulvey [MOJO 297]? What upset when the CDs are new music, I love the old themed Creative Director
him? Maybe he thought that because he is MOJO’s compilations! Dave Henderson
Senior Events Producer
editor he should have received special privileges that Mark The Hibby Mod, via e-mail Marguerite Peck
he did not receive? He clearly reports as though Business Analyst
Clare Wadsworth
the Stones put on a very poor performance. Maybe
the London Stadium was the one place that they I find one bottle of booze Head of Marketing
Fergus Carroll

did, but certainly not at the two gigs (Southampton in here and you’re out Senior Marketing Executive
Hope Noel
and Cardiff) that I saw, or the one my friends saw Direct Marketing Manager
In an otherwise interesting interview [MOJO 295], Julie Spires
(Edinburgh), rating it the best gig they had ever seen. Grace Slick seemingly conflates the causes of death Direct Marketing Executive
Rebecca Lambert
Come to that, my other friend saw them at London of Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison with that of Janis Head of Communications
and thought that they were on top form. Keef did Joplin, who died of a heroin overdose. Hendrix Jess Blake
make one mistake at Cardiff when the guitar that and Morrison did not, as far as I know, die from
he started Jumpin’ Jack Flash with was in the wrong heroin. Perhaps Grace was merely remarking on the Printing: William Gibbons
MOJO (ISSN 1351-0193) is published 12 times
tuning, so it went awry. But that was the one that his sadly uniting fact that all three were 27 years of age a year by Bauer Consumer Media Ltd. Bauer
techie gave him, Mick immediately halted the song, Consumer Media Ltd is a company registered
when they died, but each died of a different kind of in England and Wales with company number
and they restarted it. This is live rock – not some misadventure, and it behooves us to keep our facts 01176085, registered address Media House,
Peterborough Business Park, Lynch Wood,
pussyfooting chamber music recital. straight, lest we create another Cass Elliot legend. Peterborough PE2 6EA. Airfreight and mailing
Graham Stark, via e-mail in the USA by agent named Air Business Ltd, c/o
Norman Gaines, Hartsdale, New York Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15, 146th Avenue,
2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA.
Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica, NY 11431. US
When this is done and Are you fighting unlicensed? Postmaster: Send address changes to MOJO, Air
Business Ltd, c/o Worldnet Shipping Inc., 156-15,
dusted, just walk away Thanks for the review of Ragnar Johnson’s Crying 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA
To ensure that you don’t miss an issue,
In 1982, my friend bought a record that blew our Bamboos [MOJO 295]. Unfortunately, there is an visit www.greatmagazines.co.uk for the
best subscriptions offers.
teenage minds. The song was Hand In Glove and error in Mr Male’s identification of the source For subscription or back issue queries, please
the band were The Smiths. I was already a bookish, materials, as the recordings on SOMA030 were not contact CDS Global on [email protected]
Phone from the UK on 01858 43 8884.
pretentious young man so this band were exactly previously released. He was thinking of SOMA024, Phone from overseas on +44 (0)1858 43 8884
For enquires on overseas newsstand sales
what I needed in my life. Fast forward to 2018. The Sacred Flute Music From New Guinea: Madang/Windim e-mail [email protected]
Smiths are gone but Morrissey still had something Mabu (2016), which were first released as !Quartz © All material published is copyright of Bauer
Consumer Media Ltd. No part of this magazine
to say. I dismissed his taunters, but now I cannot albums. However, all of the recordings were newly may be reproduced without the prior permission
excuse him any more. His support for For Britain re-transferred from the original reels and mastered of the publisher. MOJO accepts no responsibility
for any unsolicited material.
and Tommy Robinson is the very last I can take. I as part of an extensive archiving project, of which the To find out more about where to buy MOJO,
feel betrayed and cheated by a man who introduced materials on SOMA030 and third part of the series contact Frontline Ltd, at Midgate House, Midgate,
Peterborough PE1 1TN. Tel: 01733 555161.
so many things to my life. Life was hard as a were identified. COMPLAINTS: Bauer Consumer Media Limited is
teenager, but was even harder for an indie Asian, Stephen O’Malley, via e-mail a member of the Independent Press Standards
Organisation (www.ipso.co.uk) and endeavours to
respond to and resolve your concerns quickly.
Our Editorial Complaints Policy (including full details
of how to contact us about editorial complaints
and IPSO’s contact details) can be found at

SAVE MONEY ON SUBSCRIBE

RIGHT NOW!
www.bauermediacomplaints.co.uk. Our e mail address
for editorial complaints covered by the Editorial
Complaints Policy is [email protected].

NEWSSTAND And you’ll get MOJO

delivered direct to
your door.See page
30 for full details…

AND GET DELIVERED AVEFF

FREE TO YOUR DOOR M JO O
£££ V
WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE! MAO ER
A GRKEES CO CE !
GIFT! !AT PRI
! MOJO 13
W H AT G O E S ON!
THE HOT NEWS AND BIZARRE STORIES FROM PLANET MOJO
 “A Loner
nd A
Fleetwood Mac, 1969
(from left) John McVie,
Danny Kirwan, Peter Green,
ne-Off”
Jeremy Spencer, Mick
Fleetwood; (insets, from
anny Kirwan 1950-2018
above) Kirwan’s Mac B-side
Jigsaw Puzzle Blues; their Fleetwood Mac guitarist Danny Kirwan,
’71 album Future Games. whose vibrato technique adorned classics
from 1968 until 1972, died on June 8.
Mac alumni Christine McVie and
Jeremy Spencer pay tribute.

“D
ANNY KIRWAN was the white English
blues guy,” Fleetwood Mac’s Christine
McVie tells MOJO, days after the guitarist
and songwriter’s death on June 8. “Nobody else could
play like him. He was a one-off.”
Indeed, Kirwan played a vital role during not one but
two eras of Fleetwood Mac. As an 18-year-old, he
debuted his signature vibrato sound on their 1968 hit,
Albatross, while his imaginative reading of the 1933 jazz
song Jigsaw Puzzle Blues made it onto the B-side.
However, after co-founder Peter Green’s departure,
Kirwan moved centre-stage, and left his musical
fingerprint on such underrated Mac albums as 1971’s
Future Games. He formed a crucial link between the
‘old’ Fleetwood Mac blues band and the ‘new’ chart-
dominating version featuring Stevie Nicks and
Lindsey Buckingham.
Despite his talent, though, Kirwan fell victim to what
one of his successors, Buckingham, half-jokingly calls
“the curse of the Fleetwood Mac guitarist”. Like Green,
Jeremy Spencer and Bob Welch, Kirwan did not share in
the group’s later multiplatinum success.
Instead, his haphazard solo career and personal life
were marred by alcoholism and mental health issues.
By the early 1990s, Kirwan’s legacy had been reduced
to a footnote, with newspaper stories revealing how
the Mac’s “cheerful, dishevelled” former guitarist
was now destitute.
Born in Brixton, south London, Kirwan learned to
play guitar as a teenager, and gravitated towards jazz, big
band music and the blues of Otis Rush and Albert King.
In 1967, Fleetwood Mac’s co-founder Peter Green

“Danny gave Peter Green

a new lease of life.”
JEREMY SPENCER

chanced upon the 17-year-old Kirwan performing

with his first band, Boilerhouse. Drummer Mick
Fleetwood suggested he join their group instead.
Kirwan joining Fleetwood Mac in 1968 came as
“a surprise and no surprise, really,” says Jeremy
Spencer, Green’s co-guitarist at the time. “The
‘surprise’ for me was to suddenly see Danny sitting
Chris Walter/Getty

in the van, ready for the next gig. The ‘no surprise’ was
that I was timid about stepping out with new ideas,
whereas Danny was brimming with them. It gave Pete a
new lease of life.” ➢

MOJO 15
 conversation with him.” Raymond stayed on
for Kirwan’s debut solo album, ’75’s Second
Chapter: “But it was a bit bizarre. The demos
Danny did were so much better.”
Two more solo records
followed, but Kirwan
seemed to vanish after
1979’s Hello There Big Boy!.
Nothing was heard of him
again until 1993, when
The Independent
newspaper responded to a
plea for information from
Mick Fleetwood, who was
shocked to hear his former
“He was a perfectionist”:
Christine McVie and Kirwan bandmate had been
on Top Of The Pops, 1971; sleeping on a park bench.
(insets, from top) Otis The Independent found Kirwan
Spann’s Mac-assisted LP;
Then Play On; Kiln House; staying in St Mungo’s hostel for the
Bare Trees; plus Danny solo. homeless in London’s West End. In
➣ truth, Kirwan’s whereabouts were
Green later claimed Albatross, the band’s greatest respect known to many on the capital’s music
UK Number 1, wouldn’t have “been possible – he didn’t know scene. The late Melody
without Danny”. Soon after, Kirwan joined how to treat a Maker journalist Carol
Green and Mac bassist John McVie in the woman. I Clerk had befriended
studio with Chicago blues pianist Otis Spann. respected him as a Danny in one of his regular
Critics were stunned to hear the young musician, but we didn’t always haunts, The Oporto pub in
English kid playing several solos on the see eye to eye.” Holborn, but respected his
subsequent album, The Biggest Thing Since Both Kirwan and Spencer desire for privacy.
Colossus. On Fleetwood Mac’s next UK were struggling to front the “He has been living on
album, Then Play On, Kirwan and Green’s group in Green’s absence. The social security and ‘dribs
sabre-rattling twin leads defined the likes of latter left in 1971, and Kirwan and drabs’ of royalties,”
Coming Your Way and the later hits Oh Well was soon clashing with revealed The Independent.
(Part 1) and The Green Manalishi (With The Spencer’s replacement, Asked why he’d quit the
Two Prong Crown). Bob Welch. There was business, Kirwan replied:
“I was a huge fan of that particular a pattern emerging: “I couldn’t handle the lifestyle
incarnation of Fleetwood Mac,” says Welch (who died in and the women and the
Christine McVie. “I would go and see them 2012) praised Kirwan’s travelling.”
whenever I could. Danny and Peter gelled so “musical maturity and Jeremy Spencer last saw
well together. Danny had that very precise, soulfulness” while Kirwan in London in 2002.
piercing vibrato – a unique sound.” calling him “one of the Danny was accompanied by his
She so adored Kirwan’s song When You strangest people I’ve ex-wife Clare and their son,
Say she re-recorded it for her 1970 solo LP, ever met”. Dominic: “It was pleasant
with Danny handling the string arrangement. Kirwan’s writing enough, even though he was
“He was a perfectionist,” she remembers. and spectral-sounding a bit in his own world.”
But his abilities were offset by a difficult guitar dominated ’71’s Future “I couldn’t By then, he was living in
personality. “Danny brought inventiveness Games, while the following a care home in south London,
and melody to the band, but he was like bull year’s Bare Trees included his handle the where he was well looked after
in a china shop,” says Spencer. “He took over musical take on Rupert lifestyle and and visited by family and
– with generally good results, but it some- Brooke’s poem Dust. But the
times left some less than positive feelings.” subsequent US tour broke him. the women friends until the end.
Mick Fleetwood was the
In the studio, others remember Kirwan Backstage, after an argument and the first of Kirwan’s ex-bandmates
seeking Green’s approval while simultane- with Welch, Kirwan smashed to learn of his death, aged 68,
ously jumping at any chance to challenge up his Les Paul and then travelling.” from pneumonia. “Mick told
him. Kirwan would soon have his chance to started banging his head DANNY KIRWAN me he passed peacefully in his
take over, when an increasingly unpredicta- against a bathroom sleep – which is probably the
ble Green left in August 1970, after taking wall. The band played way we’d all like to go,” says
LSD in what Spencer calls “a jet-set hippy without him, and he Christine.
commune” during a German tour. Some was fired soon after. Fleetwood released a
have also blamed Kirwan’s behaviour on Kirwan re-sur- statement: “Danny’s true
being spiked at the same commune. Others, faced in 1974 with legacy, in my mind, will forever
though, insist his problems came from Hungry Fighter, live on in the music he wrote
increasingly heavy drinking. comprising ex-mem- and played so beautifully in
Green’s replacement was keyboard player bers of Chicken Fleetwood Mac.”
Christine McVie. Fleetwood Mac’s next Shack and Savoy Christine McVie
album, Kiln House, was named after the Brown. They lasted concurs. “Listen to Woman
band’s new communal retreat, a converted one gig before Of A 1000 Years, Sands Of
oast house in Hampshire. When Kirwan and splitting. “Danny had Time, Tell Me All The
his wife-to-be, Clare Morris, joined the a touch of genius,” says their Things You Do… they’re
group there, it wasn’t comfortable. former piano player Paul killer songs,” she says. “He
“Danny was a troubled man and a difficult Raymond. “But the poor was a fantastic musician,
person to get to know,” admits Christine. fellow was a bag of nerves. and a fantastic writer.”
Getty

“He was a loner and – I say this with the I found it hard to have a Mark Blake

16 MOJO
 Gut-rockin’
tonight: Swamp

Hound Clas
Dogg, turned
upside down by
Auto-Tune.

Acid-R&B trickster Swamp Dogg talks his new Poliça/

Bon Iver-powered LP Love, Loss And Auto-Tune!!

O
VER HIS 76 years in Miami,” W
on this planet, Jerry recalls. “The
Williams Jr, AKA wanted to w
Swamp Dogg, has lived many what I’d do,
lives: penniless songwriter, on acid. Tha
gutbucket R&B shouter, near ran me
acid-inspired protest-singer. as a matter o
But little will prepare you But it brou
for his latest incarnation: me some
a soulman feeding his great songs
vocals through the same Those so
shape-shifting FX beloved of Kanye West were collected on 1970’s
and T-Pain. maverick masterpiece Tot
“I just love Auto-Tune – those high, Destruction To Your Mind, h
soprano harmonies it gives you,” says first as Swamp Dogg.
Williams, calling from his office in Los “I chose that name cuz
Angeles. He had just completed an early Williams’ just sounds emp
version of his new album, Love, Loss And he says. “You can’t really s
Auto-Tune (inset) – which, he says, cranked the name ‘Jerry’. But you c
the vocal-changing gizmo “up to 10” – scream Swamp Dogg.”
when his distributor put him in touch Total Destruction… wa
with Ryan Olson of Minneapolis synth- chart hit – “Nobody was p
rockers Poliça and kindred spirit Justin blues records,” Williams g
Vernon, AKA Grammy-winning sing-
er-songwriter Bon Iver. The duo then
bles. “Blacks had gotten “It’s gonna be big
pseudo-sophisticated, the
pushed that Auto-Tune all the way to the 11,
and the result is a weird, waywardly
like, ‘Actually, I’d like to he – unless I shoot
Ahmad Jamal…’ Aw, nigg
brilliant album that Williams believes is
“gonna be big – unless I do something
me a break.” – but earned the President.
stupid and shoot the President. Naw…
cult following.
He’s never stopped wo Naw… that’d
that’d make sales triple.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Williams’
since, running his own Sw
Dogg Entertainment Grou make sales triple.”
political protest tangled with his career. In and releasing albums like
1971, he got himself ejected from Elektra SWAMP DOGG
Gag A Maggot, 1991’s Surfi
Records – who’d released his second album Harlem and 2009 yuletide
as psychedelic funkateer Swamp Dogg, Rat An Awful Christmas And A L
On! – after accompanying Jane Fonda on
New Year. And he’s already
her anti-war protest at the Washington
on his next release.
Monument. The appearance won Williams
“I cut an album with my
a place on Richard Nixon’s infamous
who died aged 93 a few ye
“enemies list”.
he says. “She used to open
The Swamp Dogg persona was Williams’
and people loved her. I’m
attempt to turn the page on 14 years
slogging around the music business, get Justin and Ryan to list
writing and producing and scoring the to it and see if they can’t tu
occasional hit. He had an attaché case full it upside down, like they d
of new songs he wanted to record, songs my album.”
informed by a recent – albeit reluctant Stevie
– psychedelic experience. “I was slipped Love, Loss And Auto-Tune is o
some LSD at a party my ‘friends’ threw me on Joyful Noise.

GIMME FIVE… RECORDS RECORDED IN JAIL

B.B. King Eddie Palmieri Edge Of Jerry Garcia Lifers Group
Live In Cook County Recorded Live At Daybreak Lonesome Prison Blues Lifers Group
Jail Sing Sing Eyes Of Love (DEAD MAN, 1995) (HOLLYWOOD BASIC, 1991)
(ABC, 1971) (TICO, 1972) (BOHANNON’S, 1979: NUMER P Initially a MC’s/prisoners
B.B. and Lucille Where the REISSUE 2015) bootleg of at East Jersey
stop by at the Puerto Rican/ Soul and R&B a show at State Prison in
USA’s biggest Bronx band- originals cut by Oregon State Rahway, New
prison to leader and the inmates at the Penitentiary, Jersey record
play to the Harlem River Powhatan Salem, in spring ’82, here brutal, often bowel-freezing
incarcerated, who boo Drive group mix Latin jazz, Correctional Garcia and upright bassist/ post-N.W.A rap to scare
mentions of the Sheriff and salsa, rock and funk at the Center on the outskirts of drug buddy John Kahn play aspiring gangbangers away
Erik Madigan Heck

the Judge but cheer notorious lock-up. Original Richmond, Virginia. Some spare, unmitigated, outlaw- from the thug life. Their
masterful blues like the Last Poet and former elements remain in the early/ friendly folk and bluegrass VHS release: Lifers Group
tempo-changing, bleak con Felipe Luciano mid-’70s, but the whole and some Dead tunes to World Tour: Rahway Prison,
take on The Thrill Is Gone. lends oratory. strives for uplift and escape. whooping lags. That’s It.

MOJO 17
 MOJO WO R K I N G Moving up on the down
slope: Edwyn Collins
surveys the view from
his Clashnarrow studio,
near Helmsdale.

“I got the words

precisely, exactly
how I wanted
them.”
EDWYN COLLINS

autumn 2014, the new space was kitted out

with pieces from Collins’ studio hoard,
including his original Neve desk and a vintage
BBC speaker emblazoned with the broad-
caster’s founding motto “Nation Shall Speak
Peace Unto Nation”. As the studio’s been in
use by the likes of Alex Kapranos and
Tracyanne Campbell, its proprietor had to
wait for downtime to record.
As Edwyn is still recovering from suffering
two strokes in 2005, which left him with
aphasia, this was no simple task. It’s All About
You, for example, features lyrics predating
FACT SHEET his strokes. “There were about 30 books of
Title: Badbea stuff, loads and loads of discarded lyrics,
Date: late 2018 works in progress and notes,” says his wife
Production: and manager Grace Maxwell, on hand to fill
Edwyn Collins and in info and bicker fondly with him. “I said,
Sean Read Have you seen these? Even if it’s just for
Songs: Outside /
It’s All About You / a jumping off point.”
Badbea / Glasgow “Before I was rejecting lyrics,” says Edwyn,
To London / It All “but now – I’m not so fussy, Grace? For
Makes Sense To Me example, I have no problem on the chorus,
The Buzz:
“Sometimes it’s but the verses… [but] I got the words
difficult to precisely, exactly how I wanted them.”
communicate what He worked with his usual group – key-
I need to say, but I’m boardist and long-term co-producer Sean
persevering. I’ve got
so much back. I’m Read, guitarist James Walbourne, drummer
positive and full of and assistant engineer Jake Hutton, and
energy. Before my bassist/multi-instrumentalist Carwyn Ellis.
stroke I was quite “The songs are quite eclectic,” says Edwyn.
cynical, but now
I’m contented. It’s “Outside is a punk song, kind of like Iggy Pop
BACK FOR ALBUM NINE, not worth it to be meets the Buzzcocks. Glasgow To London’s
nasty and selfish.” got synthesizers on it, It’s All About You,
UNSINKABLE INDIE LEGEND Edwyn Collins which is possibly the next single, has got
EDWYN COLLINS SAYS, “I’M real strings on it and Badbea is a slow song,
quite like Chic.”
POSITIVE AND FULL OF ENERGY.” 2019 promises to be a year of touring in
Europe and America, with It’s All About You

C
oming loud and clear down the line Clearances lived from 1792 – a still-affecting also set to feature in next year’s detective
from his Clashnarrow studio in the saga of hardship, pity and injustice – it begs fantasy film Sometimes Always Never, which
Scottish Highlands, the unmistakable the question: does this title inform the will star Bill Nighy, Jenny Agutter and Sam
singing voice of Edwyn Collins. “The sun was a 12-song collection as a whole? Riley. “He’s a busy boy,” says Grace. “If I said he
bright bikini yellow, the sky was a Wedgwood “No,” says Edwyn. “It’s basically just didn’t have to do any live shows whatsoever,
blue,” he croons. “The mood was unspeakably random. I’ve been going there for years, he’d say, ‘Let’s do it anyway.’”
mellow, then you came and spoiled the view.” rambling. And the band liked it.” “I’m tour-restless,” says Edwyn, readying
Entitled It’s All About You, it’s an acerbic Work began two years ago at Clashnarrow, his catch-all studio catchphrase for making
preview of Edwyn’s next album, Badbea. which is conveniently situated near his home musicians get the perfect take: “’One more
Named for a now-ruined village in Caithness in Helmsdale, Sutherland. Having closed his time, for Jesus.’”
where those evicted during the Highland West Heath Yard facility in West Hampstead in Ian Harrison

A L S O WO R K I N G the reconstituted line-up of Ohio ’em dancin’” …IAN GILLAN has made in RMV Studio Stockholm, working on
electro-funk legends ZAPP have a new record with his reunited their two comeback tracks …ELVIS
…in June, Q-TIP (right) again recorded a new LP, due for teenage group THE JAVELINS, COSTELLO & THE IMPOST-
made reference to long- release in October. Zapp VII: in Hamburg. Speaking to ERS have signed a deal with
promised album The Last Roger & Friends will feature Finnish online mag the Concord label for a
Zulu AKA The Riot Diary guest spots by Bootsy KaaosTV, he revealed new album …South
…THE COWSILLS Collins, Snoop Dogg that it will feature covers African hip-hop
the Rhode Island and Kurupt, and of Buddy Holly, freakazoids DIE
family band who unheard recordings by Howlin’ Wolf and Ray ANTWOORD (left) have
inspired The late talk-box wizard Charles, and that his declared that their next
Partridge Family are Roger Troutman. non-pro bandmates LP, 27, will be their last
Pledge’ing a new album. Manager Lester Troutman “kept playing in the style and will “be released
“It might be our last,” says Jr explains, “This group has [of] 1962… My God, this is so unusually over the next year
Paul, who’ll be harmonising with always been about three things: authentic” …in June, the four or so.” Seventeen bonus tracks
Getty (2)

his surviving siblings Bob and Susan… hook ’em, get ’em dancin’ and keep members of the reunited ABBA were “will be hidden in various places…”

18 MOJO
 CARGO COLLECTIVE

INFINITE MUSIC TANGERINE DREAM LAY LLAMAS EVEN AS WE SPEAK THE DARTS THE JACK CADES
A TRIBUTE TO LA MONTE YOUNG MIRACLE MILE THUBAN FERAL POP FRENZY THE DARTS MUSIC FOR CHILDREN
FIRE RECORDS FIRE SOUNDTRACKS ROCKET RECORDINGS EMOTIONAL RESPONSE / SARAH DIRTY WATER RECORDS DIRTY WATER RECORDS LP / CD
LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD

SAINT BALLANTINE IMMERSION THE ESSEX GREEN THE OPHELIAS THE ROCK*A*TEENS NEGATIVE SCANNER
ALL SAINT’S DAY SLEEPLESS HARDLY ELECTRONIC ALMOST SIXTH HOUSE NOSE PICKER
SNOW DOG SWIM MERGE RECORDS JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS MERGE RECORDS TROUBLE IN MIND
LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD LP / CD

CARGO COLLECTIVE: AN AMALGAMATION OF RECORD SHOPS AND LABELS DEDICATED TO BRINGING YOU NEW MUSIC
IRELAND: ARMAGH - ARMAGH MUSIC / BANGOR - BENDING SOUND SCOTLAND: DUNDEE - ASSAI / EDINBURGH - ASSAI / GLASGOW - LOVE MUSIC / GLASGOW - MONORAIL WALES: ABERYSTWYTH - ANDY’S RECORDS / CARDIFF - SPILLERS / NEWPORT - DIVERSE /
SWANSEA - DERRICKS NORTH- WEST: LIVERPOOL - PROBE / MANCHESTER - PICCADILLY RECORDS / PRESTON - ACTION RECORDS NORTH-EAST: HARROGATE - P & C MUSIC / HUDDERSFIELD - VINYL TAP / LEEDS - CRASH / LEEDS - JUMBO RECORDS / NEWCASTLE - J
G WINDOWS / NEWCASTLE - BEATDOWN / NEWCASTLE - REFLEX / SHEFFIELD - BEAR TREE / SHEFFIELD - RECORD COLLECTOR / STOCKTON ON TEES - SOUND IT OUT MIDLANDS: BEDFORD - SLIDE RECORDS / CAMBRIDGE - LOST IN VINYL / LEAMINGTON SPA - SEISMIC
RECORDS / LEIGHTON BUZZARD - BLACK CIRCLE RECORDS / LETCHWORTH - DAVID’S MUSIC / LOUTH - OFF THE BEATEN TRACK / NOTTINGHAM - ROUGH TRADE / OXFORD - TRUCK STORE / STOKE ON TRENT - MUSIC MANIA - STOKE ON TRENT - STRAND RECORDS /
WALSALL - ECLIPSE RECORDS / WITNEY - RAPTURE SOUTH: BEXHILL ON SEA - MUSIC’S NOT DEAD / BLANDFORD FORUM - REVOLUTION ROCKS / BOURNEMOUTH - THE VAULT / BRIGHTON - RAREKIND / BRIGHTON - RESIDENT / BURY ST.EDMUNDS - VINYL HUNTER /
DEAL - SMUGGLERS / EASTBOURNE - PEBBLE / GODALMING - RECORD CORNER / LEIGH-ON-SEA - FIVES / LONDON - CASBAH / LONDON - FLASHBACK / LONDON - ROUGH TRADE EAST / LONDON - ROUGH TRADE TALBOT RD / LONDON - SISTER RAY / ROMSEY - HUNDRED
/ SOUTHSEA - PIE & VINYL / SOUTHEND ON SEA - SOUTH RECORDS / ST ALBANS - EMPIRE RECORDS / WATFORD - LP CAFE / WIMBORNE - SQUARE RECORDS / WHITSTABLE - GATEFIELD SOUNDS / WINCHESTER - ELEPHANT RECORDS SOUTH WEST: BRISTOL - ROUGH
TRADE / BUDE - AIRCULTURE / CHELTENHAM - BADLANDS / FALMOUTH - JAM / TOTNES - DRIFT MAILORDER AND INTERNET ONLY STORES: BOOMKAT.COM / FIVERISERECORDS.CO.UK / NORMANRECORDS.COM / RECORDSTORE.CO.UK / SPINCDS.COM / BLEEP.COM

GREAT REISSUES FROM

ELEMENTAL MUSIC ... AND THE BEST OF BRAZILIAN CLASSICS

CD 88539 CD 88540 CD 88548 / LP 700133 CD 88554 LP 700127

STEVE MILLER BAND STEVE MILLER BAND JORGE BEN CAETANO VELOSO MARCOS VALLE
Recall the Beginning... A Rock Love A Tábua de Esmeralda Qualquer Coisa Samba ‘68
Journey from Eden GHR @KATL V@R QDBNQCDC VHSG NMRHCDQDC DMR L@RSDQOHDBD~ GHR @KATL HR PTHSD CHEEDQDMS EQNL GD NMKX @KATL QDKD@RDC NMSGD
This 1972 masterpiece album A@RRHRS NAAX HMJDKL@M SGD NMKX SGHR QDBNQCR HMBKTCDR SGD SQ@BJ GHR LNQD DWODQHL@MS@K QDBNQCR~ HS DQUD K@ADK AX OQNKHEHB Q@YHKH@M
V@R HKKDQR RDUDMSG @MC K@RS @R @ RTQUHUHMF LDLADQ NE SGD ENQLDQ QNSGDQ @ BK@RRHB  R OHBJ EQNL ONRRDRRDR @ TMHPTD BG@QL~ VGHBG RHMFDQ~ @LA@ ±³ HR @ UHAQ@MSRDS
cult artist before the commercial A@MCR KHMD TO
~ @KNMF VHSG OK@XDQR Q@YHKH@M FQNNUD RGNVR DKNRN QDSTQMHMF SN SGD NE Q@YHKH@M ONO~ HMCDASDC SNANRR@
AQD@JSGQNTFG NE ¬´²®R GD NJDQ EQNL HMJDKL@MR OQDUHNTR FQNTO~ A@RHBR MNU@ @MC R@LA@
QTLHNTR @MCDQRM@SBG

LP 700130 CD 88543 CD 88553 / LP 700136 CD 88552 / LP 700135 CD 88549

JOHN MAYALL CLAUDINE LONGET CAETANO VELOSO CAETANO VELOSO MARCOS VALLE
Jazz Blues Fusion Colours Transa Caetano Veloso Mustan Côr de Sangue
GHR L@RSDQOHDBD @KATL QDOQDRDMSR  RTODQA @KATL EQNL SGD KNUDKX @DS@MN GHLRDKE BNMRHCDQ SGHR @DS@MN DKNRNR ¬´±³ CDATS RNKN TBG RTMMHDQ SG@M HSR OQDCDBDRRNQ~
@ CHEEDQDMS E@BDS NE I@YYQNBJ ETRHNM~ QDMBG RHMFDQ K@TCHMD NMFDS~ @KATL @R NMD NE GHR E@UNQHSD @KATL L@QJDC SGD AHQSG NE SGD SGHR QDBNQC HMBKTCDR SGD JHKKDQ
QDS@HMHMF @ CNVM SN D@QSG AKTDR @QQ@MFDC SN ODQEDBSHNM AX SGD QDBNQCR Q@MR@ V@R KHRSDC AX BTKSTQ@KKX QDUNKTSHNM@QX QNOHB@KH@ HMRSQTLDMS@K BTS YHLTSG @MC
DKDLDMS VGHBG V@R K@SDQ MDFKDBSDC FQD@S HBJ D@QN @MC OQNCTBDC NKKHMF SNMD @R NMD NE SGD ¬« ADRS LNUDLDMS BNKK@ANQ@SHNMR VHSG RNLD NESGD
VGDSGDQ HMSDMSHNM@KKX NQ MNS AX SGD KDFDMC@QX NLLX HTL@ Q@YHKH@M @KATLR DUDQ LNRS HLONQS@MS EHFTQDR EQNLSGD
AX HKDR~ NQD@~ NGMMX @B~ AQ@YHKH@M LTRHB RBDMD
@MBNBJ~ @MC SGD KHJDR

www.elemental-music.com Contact us at [email protected]

 FIVE SATIN Yes Sire I can
SMASHES boogie: Seymour
Seymour’s (centre) with a
hottest wax. blond Iggy Pop,
wife Linda, and the
1 The Crows Gee
(SINGLE, RAMA, 1953) Ramones; (below)
2 The Chords with David Byrne
Sh-Boom (SINGLE, and Madonna.
CAT, 1954)
3 Otis Williams me. Then I heard Ice-T, and oh my

SEYMOUR STEIN British Airways, booked a flight on

And His Charms
Hearts Of Stone
(SINGLE, DE LUXE, 1954)
4 The Five Satins In
God! Ice is very smart, and we’re
friends to this day.
Sire’s legendary record man talks The Still Of The Night Madonna was a notable find.
Concorde at 11am, threw some rags (SINGLE, STANDARD, 1956)
signing deals, shelf lives, and the into a suitcase, jumped on the plane, 5 La Marseillaise I met this young club DJ, Mark
Ramones vs Phil Spector. (FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY
Kamins, who I thought was special
saw them playing a club in Basildon ANTHEM, 1792)
so I gave him a budget to find new
that night, and did the deal with

A artists for him to work with. The third or

S SEYMOUR Stein croaks Otis
Daniel and the band then and there.
Williams And His Charms’ 1954 fourth was Madonna, and he produced a
doo wop smash Hearts Of Stone …but not interfere in the creative process track called Everybody which I thought very
down the phone line, you have to applaud his itself. Ever broken your own rule? good. I’d been in hospital for about nine days,
decision to operate behind the scenes rather I like to hear great songs right at the but I called him saying I’d like to meet her and
than hit the stage. A classic Jewish Brooklyn beginning. That’s what captures me. Making try to do a deal. He called back at five saying
music geek who got the bug back in the ’50s a record is a marriage between the artist and we’ll be over at eight. Oh my God! I showered,
and cut his teeth with the legendary Syd the producer, and unless I strenuously object shaved, got clothes brought over, tried to
Nathan of Cincinnati’s King Records, Stein is I don’t get involved. But I should have been look the best I could – I didn’t want her to
one of America’s last great record guys. In more hands-on with the Phil Spector think she was signing with a corpse! She’d
recordings by the Ramones [1980’s End Of The been turned down by a number of people
1966 he formed Sire, signing artists from
Century]. Joey wanted it so much and the rest including one of my idols, Chris Blackwell of
Focus to the Ramones, Madonna to Ice-T, Island Records, so when she walked in she
Talking Heads to Depeche Mode. Just of the band went along with him, though
Johnny was very wary. I have no regrets really wanted a deal. I thought she’d be quite
published is his scintillating memoir Siren big, but after her fourth single Borderline I
Song: My Life In Music, every page packed hooking them up. I love the results.
knew there would be no stopping her. She’s
with gripping inside track and insights into Is it true that to have a huge hit you need to exceptional – very strong, very smart, one of
music, musicians, the industry and life itself. find the sweet spot between the familiar the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, and
Now 76, he’s in Cannes for the annual and the never heard before? not just in the music business.
music biz schmoozathon Midem, which he’s I don’t jump on bandwagons, as you will see
barely missed in over 50 years, despite health from the artists I signed. Like, the Ramones Did you ever pass on a talented artist
scares and family tragedies (his ex-wife’s because you felt they’d be too much trouble?
– they were totally different and so many
murder, the death of their people hated them, especial- No, and I had some very difficult artists. When
older daughter of cancer). ly at the beginning. I thought I started Sire I had seen that some people only
have one or two songs in them, even though
MOJO wakes him from a nap
after “a very long lunch”.
“I didn’t want they were fantastic.
those one or two can be so important. And if I
Madonna to Indeed, when hip hop was had noticed that, the artists must be totally
You write that your job as exploding, Sire was late to aware of it; this is what they live for. Whereas I
label boss is to find talent, think she was the party… knew that if I was any good at this, I could do it
enable it to make hits… signing with It dawned on me that Sire had for the rest of my life. So I’ve always tried to be
My job is to get in early. I was been at the forefront of so fair, open-minded and respectful with artists.
never a major in the position
a corpse!” many new things, but here Tell us something you’ve never told an
to pay big bucks. Like I used to SEYMOUR STEIN was rap and I’m asleep at the interviewer before.
put out Daniel Miller’ l. I’d let myself get left
records as The Norma nd. When I saw that every Andy Paley, Andrew Oldham and I went to see
when I read in NME at d rap artist came from Phil Spector just before the second trial. To
in the morning that th of the Mississippi, I this day, even though he doesn’t answer my
letters, I still regard Phil as a great friend.
Getty (3), Avalon

real signing to his UK ed looking west. I found

label Mute was a ban e I liked but didn’t love Mat Snow
called Depeche thought this was Seymour Stein’s Siren Song: My Life In Music is
Mode, I called up cause it was all new to published by St Martin’s Press

20 MOJO
 W H AT G O E S O N !
L A ST N I G H T
A RECORD
CHANGED
MY L I F E AFTER YEARS OF TORMENT,
Anna Calvi ARE THE KINKS FINALLY
Goth-pop’s powerhouse salutes ABOUT TO REKONVENE? RAY
Grace Jones’ Nightclubbing
(Island, 1981)
AND DAVE SEEM TO SAY SO…
M
I bought it on vinyl from OJO’s reported on proposed and Ray have spoken about the possibility of
Fopp in Covent Garden reunions of The Kinks before, us working on a new album. Ray has a few
about seven years ago. notably in 2008, 2011 and 2014. Yet songs he wants to finish. I have three or four
I knew Grace Jones but I it was still somewhat jaw-dropping when a songs I’ve written with Ray.”
hadn’t followed her works. good-humoured Ray Davies casually Avory previously told MOJO he was
It was just before my first announced on Channel 4 News on June 26 sceptical that a reformation was possible, but
record was coming out, and I remember that the three surviving original members that there were indeed eight songs remaining
thinking, Oh shit, I’d better buy some were getting back together to finish the first from the 1980s that could be completed.
new clothes to look cool. I was browsing Kinks album since 1993. “Ray’s trying to get the best out of what
for records when I saw the cover and I “I’ve got all these songs, that I wrote for we’ve got and I’m in the middle of it,” he said
thought, God, that really epitomises them, when the band parted company,” in 2011. “The crux is, you can’t put it
everything I love. She was presenting Ray told interviewer Krishnan Guru-Murthy. together without Dave, and he wouldn’t want
herself as a really strong, unrestrained “I think it’s an appropriate time to do it.” to do it with me anyway. I dunno how Ray
woman. She stares at you, she’s not an He went on to say that the move was will solve it all.” Also in conversation with
object to be looked at, she’s desiring partially inspired by the impending 50th MOJO in 2011, Dave, who surprised his
you. She’s androgynous, you can feel her anniversary of The Kinks Are The Village Green audience at an Islington Town Hall gig in
muscles, but she retains a kind of Preservation Society, the last album by the December 2015 with a shock reunion with
femininity. I already knew how amazing
band’s original lineup, which his elder brother on a version
the music was going to be. I was hooked.
The title was like following her into
featured late bassist Pete of proto-punk 1964 smash
some kind of night-world, and on first Quaife. “It’s kind of a tribute “I think it’s an You Really Got Me, put the
to him and the first band,” situation succinctly: “Ray
listen it really got me on an emotional,
red-blooded level. Compare her version Davies continued. Of the appropriate doesn’t always tell you what
to Iggy’s Nightclubbing, and he’s almost antipathy between guitarist
Dave Davies and drummer
time to do it.” he’s thinking.” As for Ray, he
told MOJO in 2015 that any
like the male version of Grace Jones. Pull
Mick Avory, the songwriter RAY DAVIES Kinks activity would be off
Up To The Bumper is incredibly visual
music, Art Groupie… the titles are all said the two had yet to uff: “We’ve never been
straight-away zingers. Walking In The reacquaint in the same room vy enough to get the 02
Rain is the song I connected to most but that previously, “I’ve ena booked six months
because of the line, “Feeling like a made that work in the in advance so we can
woman, looking like a man.” I think if I’d studio, and it’s fired me up hype it up.”
have been a teenager when it came out it to make them play harder, Yet false dawn or
would have been like armour for me, like and with fire, so if I can not, as Avory
a warrior’s shield. In fact it made me feel recapture those observed, the pull of
like a teenager again: it was like falling in
moments… I’ve got he past can be hard to
love, when you become obsessed with
something and can’t stop listening to it,
some great Kinks tunes esist. “It seems like a
and it changes how you walk down the in my head.” previous life,” he said,
street. I loved feeling that as an adult. Though Davies’ but then things come
No matter what she’s saying, her management told MOJO t, and you remember it
essence comes through. That’s the only “there is nothing to say,” vidly, and it doesn’t
way you can really be original, by finding Dave Davies tweeted, “Me eem so long ago.”
the purest way of being yourself. She’s
like an amazing cool aunt: she gave me So tired, tired of waiting for you:
the fire and the bravery I needed. Dave Davies (left) and brother
I tried to get her to sing on something Ray (right), rocking towards a
with me but we couldn’t get hold of her. 2018 reunion? (Above) early Kinks
(from left) the late Pete Quaife,
But whenever she needs me, I’m here. Dave, Mick Avory and Ray.
Anna Calvi’s new album Hunter is out on
Domino on August 31.
 W H AT G O E S O N !

Caribbean, which followed a poorly-received

Wild Horses
Amy Winehouse remembered… 2006 breakthrough album Back To Black, and
show at the Bestival event on September 6,
2008. Winehouse is pictured relaxing and
exercising in the company of goddaughter
Dionne Bromfield, security man Bigs
in Blake Wood’s intimate the media’s fascination with the troubled and others, with Wood using a variety of
talent’s substance abuse, complicated love life vintage cameras. “Riding horses granted Amy
new photo-book. and punk-Ronettes public persona would and her friends a sense of freedom,” writes
Wood. After nearly three months, during

A
N ASPIRING photographer from endure until her death on July 23, 2011.
New England, Blake Wood met Amy If this is the backdrop against which his which time Winehouse began drinking to
Winehouse at Kelly Osbourne’s west images live, the 85 colour and black-and- excess, Wood returned to London, and left
London home in January 2008. “I saw this white photos that appear in Amy Winehouse for New York in November 2009. Twenty
flash of a woman in a tracksuit, this mop of present a less fraught reality. A close friend months later, Amy died of accidental alcohol
dyed blonde hair,” he recalled to Nancy Jo who describes himself and the singer as poisoning at her home on Camden Square.
Sales in That Brilliant, Loving Light, her “inseparable” for two years, Wood’s Yet, as Wood states in the foreword,
introductory essay to Wood’s book Amy photographs forgo the desperate casualty of “I wanted to show that it wasn’t all bad in
Winehouse. “She came right up in my face the redtops for intimate shots those years… there were
and said, ‘Hi, I’m Amy,’ and I said, Hi, I’m of her applying lipstick in the plenty of good, fun times.
Blake, and she kind of looked at me sideways
and said, ‘You’re not Blake.’ I don’t know if
toilets of the George Tavern in
east London and playing
“I wanted And I wanted to show her
in a way that no one had
she thought I was pulling her leg.” drums to Shirelles records at to show seen her before, to capture
her natural beauty. She
At this point, Winehouse’s husband Blake her flat in Prowse Place in
Fielder-Civil was on remand: the tabloids Camden, plus other captured that it didn’t know how beautiful
she was. I tried to tell her,
would soon begin referring to him as ‘Bad
Blake’, while Wood was called ‘Good Blake’.
moments of her bowling,
experimenting with a wig and wasn’t but she wasn’t very good at
taking compliments.”
Good Blake’s entry into her orbit coincided
with the peak of her fame: in February 2008
fixing makeup while driving.
The rest date from a detox
all bad Amy Winehouse by Blake Wood is
Winehouse bagged five Grammys for her holiday to St Lucia in the in those published this month by TASCHEN.

years.”
BLAKE WOOD
©Blake Wood

22 MOJO
Back in the saddle: Amy
Winehouse takes the
reins in St Lucia, 2008.
 W H AT G O E S O N !

“I want to T.Rex
the shit out of
my life.”
SYLVAIN SYLVAIN

He can keep his

hat on: Sylvain
by Sylvain; (inset)
Sylvain today.

The New York Doll, in his own those electric boil-inhal- The best book I’ve read
ers, or whatever you is… I don’t read too
words and by his own hand! wanna call them, they much. But I like the whole
I would describe myself as… a guy that have edibles, they have jazz era. I read Fats Waller, I
makes stuff. It’s usually art. Sometimes it’s this and that, but I just want forget the title, but that was
music. A lot of times it’s wearable art, as I like the kind you roll. I said this in a pretty damned groovy book,
to call it. And I’m a survivor, I guess. I sing for California to this young lady, and man! So, anything to do with
my meal, you know what I mean? she said, “Oh! You’re vintage.” This is 1920s jazz, New York City, Harlem,
Music changed me… by being the best funny! But anyways, that’s the way it is. Also, a those types of stories are fantastic.
subject I could find. Growing up, going nice glass of white wine with some good Is the glass half full or half empty?… it’s
through school, I couldn’t outdo the others in English cheddar cheese is dynamite, you past full, several times. It’s overflowing, with a
other subjects, but when it came to music, I know. You’ve got to enjoy life. really delicious white French wine, or maybe
knew all about what swinging meant. It was The last time I was embarrassed was… let me an Italian or a Spanish one.
the super-language. Being in New York when I think… Actually, I don’t get too embarrassed. My greatest regret is… that I didn’t have
was young, that era was really something. I My formal qualifications are… formal, like more kids. And I’ll stop right there ’cos I’m
saw that world – all the girls dancing, the way black tie? Actually, all I know, the things I’m gonna tear.
they dressed, hearing those guys singing
somewhat known for, is self-taught. When we die… I don’t know. I believe in
underneath the underpass, the burning
hearts of desire of these kids just going about The last time I cried was… quite recently. reincarnation – I might come back as a
their whatever lives – and it just knocked you I saw the movie Breakfast At Tiffany’s. It was firecracker! – but just in case you only live
out. You had to be a part of it. If not, forget it. the bit where she chases the cat away, it’s once I want to T.Rex the shit out of my life. You
raining, it’s New York… wow, forget it, break better live it all the way right here and right
When I’m not making music… basically, now, and not later, baby.
even before music, I was making clothes. The out the hankies! Beautiful, you know.
clothing is because there’s another void to fill. Vinyl, CD or streaming?… vinyl. That’s my I would like to be remembered as… the guy
’Cos it’s like bored out there, no one’s doing kick. I love the artwork. I used to buy records that wrote Trash. Just that. On my tombstone
anything and they all look the same. Lately just for the artwork, fuck the music. I want, “Here he is, he’s still dancing.” You
I’ve been making mainly caps, those black know Marc Bolan was dancing in the womb?
My most treasured possessions are… my
velvet floppy hats, like the Dolls used to wear, I’m dancing in the grave!
guitars. My newest one is dedicated to
Johnny Thunders if anything. I’ve been Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan – it’s a Les As told to Ian Harrison
perfecting my art in making that. Paul Junior, which Johnny played, in the Sylvain’s memoir There’s No Bones In Ice Cream:
My biggest vice is… smoking pot. It’s not a colour of Jerry’s baby pink drum set. I sleep Sylvain Sylvain’s Story Of The New York Dolls is
vice, it’s a necessity. These days they have with them, sometimes.
PA

published by Omnibus.

24 MOJO
 MOJO R I S I N G

“I mostly write for

catharsis… but I like
to keep things vague.”
SNAIL MAIL

FACT SHEET
● For fans of: Lucy
She is the mollusc: Dacus, Helium,
Lindsey Jordan, AKA Courtney Barnett
● One cited
Snail Mail, keeps it
straightforward influence is ‘90s cult-
and pure. legend Mary Timony
(Helium, Ex-Hex),
who taught Jordan
guitar for a year.
● Jordan chose the
LP title Lush for its
what she calls, “noise” shows in DC,
MARYLAND SONGWRITER/ “many connotations”
and because which leads to an unexpected
declaration of love for Throbbing
VOICE SNAIL MAIL FINDS THE it’s “immersive,
luscious… with
huge-sounding
Gristle. Yet the sound of Lush is, she
INDIE ROCK ESSENCE RARE guitars.” says, “super-clean. There’s little
bells and whistles on the vocals and
KEY TRACKS
guitar – even when I play live. I like

“I
love no-brainer questions,” says nearing Toronto. She’s now head- ● Thinning
Lindsey Jordan. “Like, what’s your lining following dates with Matador ● Stick it straightforward and pure, the
favourite food? What do you do labelmates Belle & Sebastian, with ● Anytime songs totally in their essence, up
at home?” public and media attention close and personal. I mostly write
It’s not that the 18-year-old who calls herself intensifying since last month’s ante-upping for catharsis, to provide closure, but I like to
Snail Mail dislikes the interview process, she debut album Lush. Jordan dismisses the hype, keep things vague. I love that people give my
explains; it’s more that, “everyone comes up though, and is on much happier ground songs their own context.”
with a narrative for me.” Her age, for starters, recalling what drove her to music. She grew Clearly the work is paramount. Besides
given Jordan made 2016’s Habit EP when she up in Ellicott City, a suburb of Baltimore, “a Snail Mail duties, Jordan is also playing bass
was 16, combining guitar-rock nuggets both beautiful historic town with lots of niche for her current support band Bonny Doon.
lithe and punchy with emotive, eloquent antique shops. I think setting influences what Other tour pastimes include reading and –
insights into teendom. “Giving my music shapes a person, and one reason I make music fave food alert – gourmet ice-cream.
context by talking about my age, sexuality or is that I had access to [Washington] DC and Regarding similar no-brainer questions,
gender takes away from the work,” she says. Baltimore scenes, but crucially I was bored at Jordan’s happy to reveal that at home she
“I care about identity politics but I don’t sing home. I had lots of energy and determination, enjoys roller-blading, and is happiest cooking
about it, so I hate providing explanations. but few ways to use it.” breakfast and sautéing veg. “Otherwise, I’m
I don’t see people asked about being dudes As early as five years old, Jordan had always writing songs. Songs that don’t need a
or being straight.” begun studying classical guitar; at 10 years narrative. Except they’re all about me.”
As she chats, Jordan’s tour van (shared old, she was playing hockey and ice hockey. Martin Aston
with bassist Alex Bass, drummer Ray Brown But her teen years turned typically rebellious, Snail Mail performs at the Green Man festival,
and second guitarist Ian Eylanbekov) is diverted by indie rock, including attending August 16-19.

26 MOJO
 MOJO PLAYLIST
Go Midwest,
young man: John
Moreland, always
near the knuckle.

Flip thine wig, with the month’s

best reggae, rock and pogo-disco.
FACT SHEET
● For fans of Steve
Earle, Townes Van 1 ALYNDA SEGARRA & THE SPECIAL
MEN DON’T TELL ME THAT IT’S OVER
Hurray For The Riff Raff’s rebel queen (above)
Zandt, John Hiatt
● Having recently returns to New Orleans with soulman King
split from 4AD, James and band. Result: a simmering show-
Moreland is in no stopper begging for an Irma Thomas cover.
hurry to sign a new Find it: download
deal. “I guess I’ll
look for a new label
when I’ve got a
new album.”
● A chance TV
2 PAUL MCCARTNEY I DON’T KNOW
En route to Egypt Station, this is piano
ballad Macca. Reflective, romantic, plaintive
viewing of Earle’s on the bridge, possib sy by the end.
Rich Man’s War video Find it: various strea rvices
converted Moreland
from punk to folk. “It
seemed such a punk
3 CONFIDENCE MAN OUT
THE WINDOW
TULSA ALT COUNTRY EX- attitude, but in a folk
song. That pushed all
my buttons.”
(WEATHERALL REMIX)
Dance-pop Melburnians bring a
PUNK JOHN MORELAND KEY TRACKS
pulsing Lord Sabre re-rub with
gospel choir and trippy up-all-night-lyrics.
PURGES AND PURIFIES ●
●
Cherokee
You Don’t Care For
Me Enough To Cry
Find it: SoundCloud

4 THE SKIFFLE PLAYERS JONNY TODD

W
hichever way you cut it, folk rock school punk gave way to ● No Glory In Regret
Cass McCombs and Californian all-stars
singer-songwriter John Moreland three roots rock albums
reconvene for a vibeful hootenanny. The
is a striking figure. Shaggy of with The Black Gold Band and Dust Bowl origins of this fingerpicking jam? A Liverpool
beard, over 25 stone, with tattoos on his head Souls, but it was his first proper folksy solo folk song best know e theme to Z-Cars!
and covering his arms and hands, including album, 2013’s In The Throes, followed by the Find it: Bandcamp
the letters “OKLA” and “HOMA” across both beautiful and damaged High On Tulsa Heat
sets of knuckles, it all screams of a troubled (2015) and Big Bad Luv (2017) that resonated.
intensity borne out in song lyrics such as, “I’m Listening to those albums, it’s hard to take 5 MYSTIC BOWIE ONCE IN A
LIFETIME
After Angélique Kidjo’s cover of
the kind of love it hurts to look at… and you in just how much rejection, unrequited love
Remain In Light, the Tom Tom
don’t care for me enough to cry.” and self-doubt the perennial outsider Club voice finds benign reggae
In conversation, Moreland is anything but Moreland reveals of himself. “People ask if barminess in Talking Heads’ signature song.
the person on record and I worry about giving up too Find it: YouTube
stage. His singing voice may much, but it’s just my way of
be equal parts bourbon and “It’s just clearing the bad things out of
gravel, but he’s gently spoken
my way of my head,” he reasons calmly. 6 DEAF WISH FFS
It’s a boom time for Aussie aggro bands
and here’s another corker. Thrill to the high
and quick to laugh, thoughtful “I’m not saying it’s easy, that it
but never dour. Born in Texas clearing the doesn’t hurt. That’s just where repetition guitars an
Find it: YouTube
gh lyrics!
in 1985, his family moved to it takes me.”
Tulsa, Oklahoma when he was
bad things out He’s happily married and
10. With no friends, he taught
himself to play his dad’s guitar,
of my head.” more at peace now, but is
determined to remain an
7 LOW FLY
A highlight of the Duluth
trio’s radical 12th, wherein Mimi
JOHN MORELAND
met like-minded kids and outcast. Though often drawn Parker’s lulling vocal emerges
made his first stage appear- to Nashville for professional from humming illbient murk.
ance, still aged 10, performing a self-penned reasons, he’s happy to remain anonymous in Find it: YouTube
song which ripped off Green Day’s Brain Stew. Tulsa. “Besides,” he chuckles, “with these
“We got paid a dollar each,” he says. “But I
dropped my pick. I was so mortified I didn’t
knuckle tattoos, I might just have a few
questions to answer about loyalty.” 8 CHAKA KHAN LIKE SUGAR
Veteran R&B diva teams up with Switch,
who pitches her high-decibel delivery at just
get back on stage for four years.” Andy Fyfe the right point of strident grooviness.
Embarrassment aside, Moreland deter- John Moreland plays the Jazz Cafe on on July 31: Find it: YouTube
mined that music would be his future. High further UK dates follow in August.

9 SPIRITUALIZED I’M YOUR MAN

Pierce returns with heartfelt country-
ALSO RISING meeting with Bertrand Burgalat of Paris’ cult soul. From September’s LP And Nothing Hurt:
Tricatel label led to her joining “a short lived see the video shot in Joshua Tree too.

“A frica is a mixture. I want to unite my

Congolese origins with rock, soul
voodoo rock’n’roll band.” Then she linked up
with the Franco-Cuban Dacunha and new
Find it: YouTube

and hip-hop.” So says Faty Sy Savanet, directions were plotted. Their recently
10 LOSING
RICHARD SWIFT
Matt White, Guy Eppel, Juliette Abitol

one half - alongside electro-rhythm released debut EP, Survivor, sounds SLEEP
king Nicolas Dacunha of like the evil, Clash-loving twin of As MOJO went to press, the
Franco-Congolese Afropunks the Mbongwana Star crew or the news broke that Swift – produc-
TSHEGUE , their moniker appropriat- Congotronics collective, with a side er, multi-instrumentalist for
ed from the name given to the lawless helping of surging feminist suss. Live The Shins and The Black Keys, and underval-
street kids of Kinshasa, her home city. shows in the UK, where the duo will ued solo artist – had died at 41. Here, from
Raised in France from the age of eight, be joined by guest percussionists and 2005, is one of his greatest; the missing link
however, she has soaked up more than her voices, will be announced soon. between Harry Nilsson and Elliott Smith.
parents’ love for rumba and soukous. A David Hutcheon Find it: YouTube

MOJO 27
RE AL GONE

DJ Fontana shows how it

should be done; (inset) with
Elvis at Radio Recorders,
Hollywood, laying down a take
of Jailhouse Rock, May 1957.

THE LEGACY
ELVIS
PRESLEY more. Amid the chaos and

A beat like a ton Hound Dog/

Don’t Be Cruel
(RCA, July 2 1956)
screaming of the endless one-night-
ers, 11 national TV broadcasts in
1956 alone, and slots in some of

of coal
Drummer DJ Fontana, who played I kept it simple.”
on the show. “I thought he had a
unique sound,” Fontana recalled.
“One that I shouldn’t clutter up.
A perfect 45,
showcasing DJ’s
skill at giving a
song just what it
needed. Over 31
Presley’s first Hollywood films, DJ
kept his cool, laid down the big beat
and helped write the rock’n’roll
rulebook for drummers worldwide.
takes of Hound
Although Presley’s initial Sun As Sun rockabilly Sonny Burgess
the rhythms that powered Elvis releases featured just guitars and
Dog, Fontana
beat the snare once told me, “Elvis was a big
in the ’50s, left us on June 13. bass, label boss Sam Phillips also magnificently into inspiration, he and Scotty Moore,
submission, then
t all started at the Louisiana Hayride. Elvis tried him with drummers – first Bill Black and DJ Fontana. Those

I Presley, Scotty Moore and Bill Black had

appeared on the Grand Ole Opry on
October 2, 1954, but the response from the
Jimmy Lott, then Johnny Bernero.
Elvis was now convinced he needed
drums, and the job went to the man
who’d backed him at the Hayride.
he eased down to
create a relaxed
and sympathetic
groove for the
flipside, recorded
guys were an inspiration to us
guys trying to play, because they
were just creating something
Nashville audience was seriously under- directly entirely different.”
whelming. Still, Elvis earned himself $12. Two Fontana joined the band in August afterwards. After the group broke up in ’58,
weeks later, they drove out to the Shreveport 1955 – shortly before negotiations Fontana would become a Nashville
Municipal Auditorium for the first of their began to sell Elvis’s contract to RCA – and his session regular in the 1960s. His last live
many Hayride broadcasts, and it was clear first recording session with the label included appearance alongside Elvis and Scotty was,
they’d found a home. They a song whose chances the perhaps fittingly, the 68 Comeback Special, in
also found a drummer there, record company didn’t rate which a stripped-down line-up sent out a
DJ Fontana. “Elvis had a very highly. It was called timely reminder to the younger generation of
Dominic Joseph Fontana,
a fan of big band music, was
unique sound Heartbreak Hotel.
After that, the floodgates
exactly how it should be done.
In the 1980s, DJ gigged regularly as part of
born in Shreveport, Louisiana – one that opened: Hound Dog, the Sun Rhythm Section, remaining consist-
on March 15, 1931. In contrast I shouldn’t Jailhouse Rock, My Baby Left ently modest over the years about his superb
to the Opry, which objected to Me, Blue Suede Shoes, All contribution to such a phenomenal run of
the use of drums, the less clutter up.” Shook Up, Baby I Don’t Care, landmark Elvis recordings and shows. The last
uptight Hayride had given DJ DJ FONTANA Little Sister, Return To Sender, surviving member of Elvis’s Blue Moon Boys,
Getty (2)

a regular gig since 1953, Teddy Bear, Viva Las Vegas, he died at his home in Nashville, aged 87.
backing artists who appeared King Creole and hundreds Max Décharné

28 MOJO
 in ’49 after annulling his first
JOE JACKSON marriage. After those early
Jackson family patriarch successes, Jackson’s harshness was
BORN 19 rewarded by dismissal as Michael’s
manager (1973), as The Jacksons’
The sternest of (’83), and a total absence from
fathers, Joseph Michael’s will.
Jackson drilled his Geoff Brown
young sons in
stage-craft and
obedience so well, JON HISEMAN
first as The Jackson Colosseum’s jazz-rock
Brothers (Jackie, drum mage
Tito, Jermaine) and then as The
Jackson 5 (with Marlon, Michael),
BORN 1944
that they became hit-strewn stars Through training, influences,
of Motown after 1969’s I Want You preference and opportunity, the
Back, a prelude to unimaginable south-east London-born drummer Fusion rhythm master:
solo success for Michael (Off The Jon Hiseman on-stage
Jon Hiseman became one of the with Colosseum.
Wall, Thriller, Bad) and youngest most effective bandleaders and
daughter Janet (Control, Rhythm musicians at the dawn of jazz rock.
Nation). But by the time those Having served an apprenticeship in
landmark records were made, Joe ’60s bands like The Crazy World Of interlude with the rockier band On the death of Colosseum’s
had been revealed as a parent Arthur Brown, The Graham Bond Tempest, he formed Colosseum II sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith in
who’d damaged his children Organisation and John Mayall’s in the mid-’70s, and also started 2004, Thompson joined until the
mentally and physically, allegations Bluesbreakers, he combined composing and recording TV and band’s end in 2015. Hiseman
of beatings, molestations and elements of jazz, blues and rock to film music with his wife, the jazz recorded his final album, 2017’s
humiliations abounding. Born in powerful effect in his best-known saxophonist Barbara Thompson. Heroes, with long-term bandmates
Fountain Hill, Arkansas, by 18 he band, Colosseum, with late-’60s/ But Colosseum always seemed to Dave Clempson (guitars) and Mark
was living in Indiana when he met early-’70s albums such as Valentyne call him back and he reformed the Clarke (bass, vocals) as JCM.
17-year-old Katherine and wed her Suite, Daughter Of Time and Live. An ’71 line-up in 1994. Geoff Brown

THEY ALSO SERVED

DRUMMER NICK KNOX EXECUTIVE and A&R RUSS Longmuir left the band, but violence arrests, on-stage produced the 2003 Sinatra-
(b.1953, below) was a REGAN (b.1928) began his returned in 1978, by which fights and other self-destruc- in-Australia comedy drama
member of Cleveland career as a singer-songwriter- time their moment had tive behaviour. He was shot The Night We Called It A Day.
ur-punks The Electric Eels producer, scoring novelty hits passed. He later worked as dead on June 18. BLUESMAN MATT
before joining The Cramps in the ’50s and ’60s, including a plumber and Bylaws GUITARIST NEIL JONES ‘GUITAR’ MURPHY
from 1977 to 1991, lending his 1963’s Sonny Bono-pro- inspector, and played with (b.1949) was a member of (b.1929) left his home in
stripped rockabilly duced Calling All Cars. the reunited Rollers in 2015. Cardiff’s Amen Corner, who Mississippi to join Howlin’
rhythms to LPs In the early ’60s he From 2013 he appeared in the shared stages with Hendrix Wolf’s band in Chicago in
including Songs moved to biographical stage show And and Pink Floyd and had hits 1948. In the years that
The Lord Taught Motown to I Ran With The Gang. including Bend Me, Shape followed he would play with
Us and A Date promote acts CLUB OWNER LORRAINE Me, High In The Sky and, Memphis Slim, Etta James,
With Elvis. A including The GORDON (b.1922) first having moved to the Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy
man uneasy Supremes, went to NY jazz nexus the Immediate label, the 1969 Williamson II, Koko Taylor,
with public Smokey Village Vanguard in 1940. In Number 1 (If Paradise Is) Half Ike Turner, Little Junior
attention, in Robinson and 1949 she would marry the As Nice. He later joined most Parker, Buddy Guy and
recent years Stevie Wonder. famous nightspot’s owner of his bandmates in Fair James Cotton. In 1980 he
he managed As an executive at Max Gordon, and assumed Weather, who reached appeared alongside Aretha
Cleveland organ punks the Polygram, 20th sole ownership and Number 6 with Natural Sinner Franklin, James Brown,
Archie And The Bunkers Century and Uni labels he management on his death in in 1970. Afterwards he had Cab Calloway and others in
and made DJ appearances for worked with Neil Diamond, 1989, until her retirement in a successful career as a the movie The Blues Brothers,
the Norton label. His Cramps Elton John and The Beach late 2012. In 2013 she was photographer of rock bands and reprised his role in the
bandmate Kid Congo Boys, among others. Other awarded a National and celebrities. film’s 1998 sequel.
Powers called him, “Coolest credits included soundtracks Endowment For The Arts Jazz AUSTRALIAN director FIRST NATIONS voice BILLY
of the cool… glad to have for movies including Endless
Master Award. Her first PETER CLIFTON THUNDERKLOUD
played to your boss Beat.” Love, Chariots Of Fire and The
husband was Blue Note (b.1945) worked on films of (b.Vincent Clifford, 1948, left)
JOURNALIST ROY CARR Karate Kid; he also executively
co-founder Alfred Lion; her The Easybeats, Jimi Hendrix fronted Edmonton group
(B.1945) had been a music produced the 1976 curio All
daughter Deborah will now and the 1972 London The Chieftones, who
writer since his teens before This And World War II, where
war years footage was run the Village Vanguard. Rock And Roll Show. reflected their
joining the NME staff in 1970.
As well as interviewing star juxtaposed with Beatles FLORIDA rapper XXX- He famously Native American
names like solo Beatles, Led covers by The Bee Gees, Leo TENTACION (b. Jahseh edited the 1976 ancestry in their
Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, Sayer and more a notion he Onfroy, 1998) began posting Led Zeppelin stage
he wrote books on Elvis said came to him in a dream. tracks on SoundCloud in concert film presentation
Presley, The Rolling BAY CITY ROLLERS bassist 2014: his 2016 release Look At The Song and who
Stones, and David Bowie ALAN LONGMUIR Me would bring him Remains The moved to
and curated NME cassette (b.1948, below) was a founder slow-building success that Same after its Nashville and
compilations such as C81, member of the shadowed culminated in his genre-splic- director, Joe achieved US
C86 plus country, jazz and Edinburgh pop phenome- ing album 17 debuting at Massot, was fired. country hits with
rock’n’roll collections. Among non, who scored nine Top 10s Number 2 on the Billboard He also re-shot crucial What Time Of Day and
his other claims to fame were between 1974 and ’76, chart in 2017 and, after he footage at Shepperton Pledging My Love in 1975.
introducing Springsteen to including ‘Rollermania’ signed a multi-million dollar Studios, and had his house The group played at Richard
Phil Spector, writing the smashes Bye Bye Baby deal with the Capitol searched when Zeppelin Nixon’s second Inaugural Ball
notes to Paul McCartney’s and Shang-A-Lang. label, its follow-up ? manager Peter Grant in 1973; the following year
Getty (4), newswire.com

Choba B CCCP live Soviet LP In 1976, hitting Number 1 suspected him of stealing ThunderKloud was
and stating in print how his the year they in March. His negatives. He later worked presented with a mountain
bandThe Executives once achieved brief career with The Rolling Stones, The lion by Walt Disney after
blew the Stones off-stage at American was dogged Beach Boys and Eric playing at Disney World.
a gig in Blackpool. success, by domestic Clapton, and wrote and Clive Prior

MOJO 29
 TWO
FOR !
ONE

SUBSCRIBE NOW! ORDER AT:

WWW.GREATMAGAZ
ALTERNATIVELY CALL 018
Terms & Conditions: * when you choose the print option and pay by direct debit. The minimum term is 24 issues. After your first 24 issues, your subscription will continue at this offer
price thereafter unless you are notified otherwise. Direct Debit payments will continue to be taken and you will not receive a renewal reminder. This offer closes on 20th August 2018.
This offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer. Costs from landlines for 01 numbers per minute are (approximate) 2p to 10p. Cost from mobiles per minute (approximate) 10p to 40p.
SUBSCRIBE TO TWO
YEARS OF
FOR THE PRICE OF ONE
PRICING: CHOOSE FROM 3 OPTIONS
SUBSCRIBE
TODAY AND PRINT ONLY DIGITAL ONLY PACKAGE

BENEFIT
FROM:
✹ TWO YEARS
FOR THE PRICE
OF ONE

*when you choose the print option & pay by direct debit.
✹ FREE DELIVERY
STRAIGHT TO PRINT DIGITAL PACKAGE
YOUR DOOR 24 issues for 24 issues for 24 issues of
OR INSTANT £63 when £26 when print AND
DOWNLOAD TO you pay by you pay by digital for
YOUR DIGITAL credit/debit credit / debit £68 when
DEVICE card / PayPal card / PayPal you pay by
credit / debit
✹ NEVER MISS card / PayPal
AN ISSUE

INES.CO.UK/MOJO
58438884 QUOTING IEAA
Costs vary depending on the geographical location in the UK. You may get free calls to some numbers as part of your call package – please check with your phone provider.
Order lines open 8am-9.30pm (Mon-Fri), 8am-4pm (Sat). UK orders only. Overseas? Please phone +44 1858 438828 for further details. Calls may be monitored or recorded for training purposes.
For full terms and conditions please visit www.greatmagazines.co.uk/offer-terms-and-conditions.
 THE MOJO INTERVIEW

The ultimate guitar guru

on surviving Doncaster,
jamming with Jimi, teaching
Miles the “wackachucka”
and pioneering spiritually-
charged global fusions for
six decades. “Purists are the
bane of humanity,” notes
John McLaughlin, serenely.
Interview by BEN THOMPSON t Portrait by TOM SHEEHAN

M
OJO BUMPS INTO JOHN McLAUGHLIN musical summit-meetings, the testimony of those who were there
on the Portobello Road a few minutes can only become more valuable.
before our interview is due to begin. He’s And McLaughlin is very much still ‘there’, entering an eighth
dressed casually but with an undertow of decade fusing jazz, rock, classical and world musics, extending
monied crispness. Without knowing who a catalogue of eight Mahavishnu Orchestra albums, 18 as a solo
he was, you’d pick him as either a bandleader, five with Shakti and Remember Shakti, over 50 as
successful actor of the Bill Nighy ‘silver fox’ persuasion, or a a significant contributor, plus multiple live albums in various
semi-retired architect who now only works on projects that really incarnations. Mixing tasks on the latest of the latter – a double
excite him. header with McLaughlin’s 4th Dimension band and Jimmy
McLaughlin’s greeting protocol is the kind of soft handshake Herring’s Invisible Whip, recorded at San Francisco’s Warfield
you’d expect from someone who has better things to do with their Theatre last December – are what brings McLaughlin to London
fingers, followed up by a jovial fist-bump. Interviews on YouTube today, and his playing on the most recent – 2017’s Live At Ronnie
give a serene but somewhat sombre impression of the 76-year-old Scott’s – earned him this year’s Grammy for Best Improvised Jazz
guitar virtuoso which, while not wholly misleading, will be Solo, his first win. Weaned on classical music, baptised in skiffle,
mitigated – as we settle in the snug library of a nearby members’ schooled on the British beat boom’s session scene, he is best
club – by his unexpectedly good comic timing and eerily good known as one of the architects of fusion – the rock and jazz hybrid
Miles Davis impression. that sprang from Miles Davis’s electric
The excitement of meeting the man WE’RE NOT WORTHY transformation at the turn of the ’70s – and as
responsible for the transcendent guitar playing a beatific presence, dressed all in white, on the
on (to pick two of any number of standout High praise from a fellow cover of 1973’s Love Devotion Surrender, the
moments in McLaughlin’s overlapping careers seeker: Carlos Santana. album he made with Carlos Santana to
as sideman and bandleader) Davis’s In A Silent “I trusted John to take me espouse their twin adherence to Indian
to his teacher, Sri Chinmoy.
Way and Jack Johnson sessions is in no way I felt that I would learn spiritual leader, Sri Chinmoy.
diminished by the five decades which have something everlasting, Born in Doncaster and subsequently
passed since those seismic moments of which I did – love to life, brought up in sundry more northerly
devotion to people,
creative inspiration. Quite the reverse. As time surrender to God. John
locations, including Whitley Bay, McLaughlin
chips away at the number of living participants McLaughlin is Miles Davis’s favourite has lived in Monaco for almost 30 years. His
Alamy

in those twice-in-a-Tony-Williams-Lifetime guitar player and mine too. John accent crosses international borders with ➢
McLaughlin is totally SUPREME.”

MOJO 33
 ➣ For a while it was, but then I got fed up with times it was really difficult to establish myself
the same disrespect for restriction as
his voyages though Indian classical and hearing, “A little bit more toppy/chunky on the in each new situation, but their warmth and
guitar” or “You’re too loud” – to a point where encouragement saved me, and they took it
flamenco styles have shown to the I actually felt like I was going to die if I went in upon themselves to make sure I had a good
requirements of purists. Yet the difficult the studio again, so I just drove away from a musical education: the gramophone was my
personal terrain onto which he uncharac- recording session in my little sports car and left greatest teacher…
teristically strays in the course of our them in the shit with two sessions booked and
no guitar player. Presumably that sense of being nurtured by
conversation brings his North-eastern roots your brothers was a good preparation for
to the fore in his voice in a way which is as When you say “going to die”, was it really later collaborations with other musicians?
stark as it is (given the subject matter under a physical anxiety? Yes, and without them I don’t think I’d even be
discussion at the time) quietly moving. Absolutely. Well, psycho-physical. a guitar player anyway, because they were the
ones who first brought a guitar into the house,
You’re currently working on a new album in Your mother played the violin, but she and it worked its way down through the family
Holland Park. This part of London must be wasn’t a professional musician, was she? ’til it reached me at the age of 11. I’d been
full of memories from your time as a session No. She’d just been in an amateur orchestra studying the piano, which I loved, but it’s not
man in the mid-’60s. when she was young – she’d have loved to be my instrument, whereas the minute I held that
I just walked across Lansdowne Road! I a professional but marriage and children got in guitar in my hands for the first time it was like
remember what was Lansdowne Studios. I the way. I was the youngest of five, with three I was in love – all I wanted to do was play it for
recorded there as a studio shark with Petula brothers and one sister. the rest of my life.
Clark and Tom Jones. Tom Jones wore a suit Did your dad have musical leanings too? That’s unusual – to know what you want to
like Engelbert Humperdinck. I also worked with do that early.
Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, Donovan, all No. He was a machine fitter. Plus, my parents
those people. There was such a boom in the separated when I was six or seven. My dad had Yes. I’d had a very powerful experience when
recording industry at the time that as long as been a violent man with all of us. Until my I was really young – about five – of sitting with
you could read music you could make a good mum woke up one morning and said, “Get a my mother while she was knitting and
living. It was a job – a factory. You’d sit down move on, we’re leaving.” She just couldn’t take listening to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. At
with the music in front of you and in those days it any more, and we didn’t want to take it the end there’s a vocal quartet and the sound
everybody was there – the orchestra, the either. We went to my grandma’s, up in brought me out in goosebumps all over my
back-up singers, the star – and the musical Northumberland. Then after that, we moved body. I said, “Mum, what’s this, is it the music?”
director would say, “Right, one, two, three, go.” around a lot. My mum was a seamstress who And she said, “Yeah, isn’t it great? That’s what
You’d do two pieces for a single in one session. also cleaned people’s houses and did maid music can do.” That moment affected me
And if the MD liked what you were doing, then work just to feed us. permanently. There was another time a few
you’d get called back. It was as simple as that. years later, in my early teens, when I heard a
How old was your oldest brother? recording of South Indian temple nagaswaram
This was how I ended up doing all the Peter &
Gordon sessions with Sir George Martin – Ten years older than me. All my brothers had it players on Alan Lomax’s radio show – it’s a
because George liked me. And then there were worse than me from my dad, and there were reed instrument, very big, related to the
the advertising jingles which paid three times interventions from the others when the battles saxophone – and that gave me shivers in
what a normal session paid, because you’d be started – especially the number two brother, exactly the same way.
all done in an hour. It was great to have some who was very courageous. He didn’t care: he
was there to protect everybody else. He was It’s funny that it was a vocal that first
money in my pocket for the first time in my life, hooked you.
but I only managed it for 18 months before that kind of character. He’d just say, “You’re not
I couldn’t stand it any more. going to touch my brother.” Fantastic. My How about that! I hope I’m born again as a
brothers totally replaced the influence of singer – if I could’ve sung in this life I could’ve
But it sounds like fun! a dad. Having to change schools so many been a star, but I tried and I was hopeless, to

A LIFE IN PICTURES 2 3
McLaughlin’s memories: images of John.

1 Young John, aged 10, in

uniform: “Having to change
schools so many times it was
recording 1989’s Aura, the last
album released during the
trumpeter’s lifetime
difficult to establish myself.”

2 Spirits awakening: in 1972

with Sri Chinmoy and
8 Firework night: John
McLaughlin joins Late
Night With Jimmy Fallon’s
(right) Carlos Santana. house band The Roots,
November 5, 2010 .
3 Three’s not a crowd: (from
left) Paco De Lucia, Al Di
Meola and John promote 9 The electric guitarist in
1978: “The minute I held
1996’s flamenco-jazz fusion that in my hands for the first
album The Guitar Trio. time it was like I was in love.”

4 Spirits of youth: a
teenage John
McLaughlin (far left) on
duty with skiffle band
The Rum Junglers.

5 Flame on: classic

Mahavishnu
Courtesy of John McLaughlin (3), Getty (5), Avalon

Orchestra (from left)

Jerry Goodman, JMcL,
Billy Cobham, Rick Laird
and Jan Hammer, 1973.

6 At last!: holding his

Best Improvised Jazz
Solo Grammy for Miles
Beyond on 2017’s Live At
Ronnie Scott’s.

7 “He was like Picasso

in music”: John with
Miles Davis in 1985
1

34 MOJO 3
my eternal regret. As it was I played in a skiffle his saxophone was distorting – playing two or town with Jack DeJohnette, who loved to jam,
band, The Rum Junglers, in my early teens. three notes at the same time, when all the Jack said to Dave, “Let’s jam,” and because I
What I really wanted to be was a flamenco harmonics come out and you get more meat. was crashing at Dave’s house they called me
guitar player, but there wasn’t a lot of call for That’s what I wanted to be doing, and when down to join in. I didn’t even know Jack had
that in Whitley Bay, so by 15 I had an amateur Jimi Hendrix came along I felt he was doing the recorded it. Then when Dave was in America
jazz band. We were deep into the East Coast same thing with his guitar. Being in that band with Miles and Tony Williams told him he was
hard-bop school – Horace Silver, Art Blakey – with Graham, Ginger [Baker] and Jack [Bruce] looking for a guitar player, Dave said, “Listen to
and then by the late ’50s, when I got caught by was a very wild time for me. Graham Bond was this guy,” and played him the tape. Then I got
Miles and Coltrane, I really regretted that there into black magic, and although nobody really the call from Dave saying, “I’ve got someone
was no guitar player in those bands, because knows, I think that’s what ended his life years here who wants to work with you”. And it was
that was the kind of music I wanted to play. later. It’s very mysterious how he fell in front of Tony telling me “I’m putting this trio together.”
that tube train. Even the name of Tony’s band – Lifetime
After that, you played with Georgie Fame,
Alexis Korner and Graham Bond. – suggested a new life was beginning.
There’s a story about you giving It was like jumping in a new ocean,
Jimmy Page guitar lessons when and trying to keep my head above
you were younger – is that true?
Yes. Neither of us were anyone at the
“Miles said, ‘John – water. It was a very good time for me,
because I was actively changing my
life. I’d quit everything – smoking,
time. It was just after I first came
down South to try and get work as a take all those drugs, drinking, grass. I’d come out of the
psychedelic thing and after five or six
guitarist, so I was maybe 19 and
Jimmy was a couple of years younger.
We were both living out in suburban
fuck all those bitches, LSD trips I’d kind of got the message,
which was to start eating better,
meditating and doing yoga…
Surrey, just two guys trying to find
our way as guitar players, and
play all those notes Presumably you needed your wits
because I’d been playing longer than
him, he asked me if I’d show him a and live!’” about you, because I think the first
thing you ended up doing in New
York was recording what became In
few things on the guitar, which I was
happy to do because he was such a A Silent Way with Miles Davis…
nice guy. It’s too long ago for me to remember When you got the call to go to New York, Tony was working his last week with Miles at
exactly what, but I’m sure it was tremendously that must have felt like a more benign form the Club Baron, and the night I arrived I went
significant! of magical intervention… down to hear the band. Miles walked in the
I loved playing with Georgie Fame – he door with his cape on, saw me – I don’t know
It did. I’d been living in Belgium, trying to play
could sing and play, and it was a swinging how he knew who I was, but he did – and
free jazz but not really managing it, then when
band. Shortly after I left, he had a hit. The brushed past me very close up whispering
I came back I was hanging out with Dave
music I played with The Graham Bond (McLaughlin assumes a cracked Davis whisper)
Organisation was much more demanding. I’d Holland a lot, because I had a really nice band “Johhhn…” then just kept right on walking.
met Graham, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce for a while with him and John Surman and The day after, I went with Tony to Miles’s house
playing with Alexis Korner. I didn’t care for the Tony Oxley. We were also in two of the when he went round there to get paid and
cool jazz sound any more. When I first heard different house bands at Ronnie Scott’s – he Miles told me to bring my guitar to the studio
Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, I couldn’t under- was in the main one and I was in the Hammond in the morning. I don’t think Tony was too
stand it. It was just so over my head. But the trio. That was the classic format: Hammond happy about it, and I was in shock.
poem on the sleeve was magnificent, and I organ, drums, no bass player, because the The music on In A Silent Way still had one
knew the music was the same as the poem, so Hammond organ’s got the bass. foot in tradition, but the other foot was going
that helped me hear it properly. I loved the way Anyway, one night when Bill Evans came to somewhere else. For example, with what ➢

6
 “I’ve got arthritis, but t only thing I have no
proble with is the ui r. Isn’t that far out?”
➣
became the title track, Miles didn’t like the Jimi Hendrix play. Miles was always inviting me Miles knew how much I revered him. It’s one
way Joe Zawinul’s original tune was going, so up to his house because he wanted to pick my thing to be a great player, but to conceive of
he asked me to play it on the guitar – even brain about R&B, funk and soul – that new forms takes tremendous imagination.
though I only had a piano score. “Play the “wackachucka” kind of guitar-playing, which I’d Look at the recordings he made with Gil Evans
tune, John.” “What do you want, the chords been listening to very intensely for years in the in the ’50s, adapting the flamenco influence
and the melody? But it’s a piano score…” music of James Brown and others. – that was as much fusion music as anything I
“Is that a fact?” The fact he chose to get that information would do later, whether with the Mahavishnu
Sweat was pouring off me. Of course, the from a white guy from England… Orchestra, or Shakti, or Paco De Lucia.
famous thing he told me next was, “So play it like
you don’t know how to play the guitar…” I had It’s far out, isn’t it? But Miles knew what he was He seems to have enjoyed teasing you,
no idea what he meant, but in that situation it’s doing. He was like Picass usic. He’d play naming not one but two songs [John
kind of do or die, so I closed the score and just a chord and say, “What w you do with it?” McLaughlin on Bitches Brew and Go Ahead,
played it in E – no tempo, no chords, no And I’d say “Well, maybe ?” And that’s John on Jack Johnson] after you…
how a lot of the work on s Brew was done Yes. In 1985, when I did my guitar concerto
nothing, but the others followed me, and that
– just in his home. When I e’d put $100 in with the LA Philharmonic, Miles came to the
performance is the one that’s on the record.
my pocket and say, “Mak you eat.” He
concert with his then neighbour, Burt
How had your working relationship didn’t know what he wanted, but he knew
Bacharach, who I’d also worked with in London
changed by the time you made Bitches Brew, what he didn’t want, which was to repeat
when he brought Dionne Warwick over in the
six months later? anything he’d ever done before, however
beautiful or marvellous it was. ’60s. The opening of the second movement
By that time I’d got to know him very well. was played on the flugelhorn as a tribute to
I took him to the movies one night to see You’ve called him “a conceptualiser of how much Miles’ playing on that instrument
Monterey Pop – that was the first time he saw new forms”… meant to me in the late 1950s. He came up to

36 MOJO
 The axe man cometh:
“After I did my guitar records. Yet fusion is often criticised as around that time from Miroslav Vitous saying,
concerto Miles said, something bad that happened to jazz, not “We’re forming a band with Wayne Shorter
‘John, now you can die.’”: something good that happened to rock. and Joe Zawinul and we want you to be in it.”
John McLaughlin, not
dead yet, Eastcote Studios, It’s terrible, isn’t it? These bloody purists are I would’ve loved to, if Miles hadn’t given me
Kensal Road, London the bane of humanity. They think they know orders to go for it on my own.
W10, May 29, 2018. what jazz is and Miles suffered at their hands. The first person I called was Billy Cobham,
But then everybody I played with did – maybe because I knew he’d be great. Then I’d always
I brought this curse on them – because when wanted to play with a violin – that may have
I played with the great tabla player Zakir been something to do with my mother – so
Hussain in Shakti it was the same thing. I found Jerry Goodman who’d been in The
Flock. Jerry had holes in his jeans in 1971, that’s
The first-ever gig Mahavishnu Orchestra was how ahead of the times he was: a total hippy,
opening for John Lee Hooker. How was it?
but a beautiful violin player. Then
It was an unqualified success. We were booked I wanted Rick Laird on bass from playing
for one week at the Gaslight Cafe in New York, together in the ’60s with Brian Auger, because
and we got held over for another. Apart from we became really close in that period. Last but
how well our performance gelled, it was great not least Miroslav put me in touch with Jan
listening to John Lee every night, as he was Hammer. He said, “If you want a piano player,
one of the first guitarists I’d ever loved, one of my friends from Prague is out with
alongside Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy Waters. Sarah Vaughan.” I knew if he was playing with
Is it right that Miles told you to go out on Sarah he must be good, so I hired him without
your own after an off-night at a club on the hearing him. I just called Jan and said, “I’m
New Jersey Turnpike? putting this band together; it’s not Sarah
Yeah. Thanks, Miles! I don’t think I would have Vaughan music,” and he replied, “I’m in.”
done it otherwise. I’d have probably been in I know you’ve found meditation very
Weather Report instead, because I got a call helpful in shaping your work. Something
you said about this practice that I really liked
THREE JOHNS was “to sit down and watch what goes on in
your mind is a very significant activity.”
Key albums reveal It is. I think to view meditation as a means to an
J-Mac’s multiple avatars. end is a fatal error. It’s not for that. That’s like
saying, “Well, you’re playing this tune: can you
CONTEMPLATION hurry up? I want to get to the end.” It’s stupid,
John McLaughlin isn’t it? It’s like you’re having a dance with a
My Goal’s Beyond lovely girl, you don’t want to rush it, you want
it to last forever!
★★★★★
DOUGLAS, 1971 That’s roughly how I imagine the duration
In the high summer of jazz rock, of your 1969 jam session with Jimi Hendrix.
with Jack Johnson just behind
Yeah well, the engineer just rolled the tapes
him and The Inner Mounting
Flame only two months away,
and got hours and hours of noodling. Maybe
McLaughlin took a radical turn you could find the odd nugget in there, but it
for this, his third solo LP. A study wouldn’t be easy. Mitch Mitchell was an old
in how his acoustic playing is as innovative as his friend from us being in Georgie Fame’s band
electric, a side of solo jazz standards precedes together, so he’d come down to find me
the expansive flip, where McLaughlin leads playing at the Village Vanguard with Tony and
Haden, Holland, Goodman et al deep into raga told us to come round the corner to Electric
terrain; frenzied, virtuosic, meditatively serene. JM Lady. When we got there a big party was going
on with lots of girls and lots of other guitar
CONFLAGRATION players, and I really wanted to play with Jimi,
The Mahavishnu but at that time I still hadn’t moved to a
Orchestra solid-body guitar, so when I plugged in my big
acoustic, all the Marshall amps were screaming
The Inner Mounting Flame feedback at once. It was too loud for me to
★★★★★ hear what I was playing, and I don’t recognise
CBS, 1971
me afterwards and said, “John, now you can the music on the recording. I should have
die.” That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s Mahavishnu announces itself taken one of Jimi’s guitars, because he played
ever said to me. I also remember after the last on this breathtaking debut. right-handed guitars left-handed, but I didn’t
time we played together in Paris in ’91, when Opener Meeting Of The Spirits’ have the presence of mind to do that.
speed, intensity and accuracy
he really hadn’t looked well, he called me and
sets a rigorous template as You’ve said in the past that the guitar is like
I told him he should try to take care of himself. McLaughlin’s fast yet lucid
His answer was, “John – take all those drugs, a part of your body. Does the physical
guitar, Jerry Goodman’s cogent rock violin (!) experience of playing it still feel the same as
fuck all those bitches, play all those notes and and drummer Billy Cobham’s controlled high
live!” (Laughs) What can you say to that except, it’s always done?
energy drive the piece. The electric interplay of
“OK Miles, go ahead…” Noonward Race, Vital Transformation and Well, I’ve got arthritis coming, but I’m doing
Awakening is elating, as jazz-rock is defined. GB Ayurvedic medicine, which is amazing.
The two albums you made with The Tony Because I can do almost nothing else now with
Williams Lifetime have lasted just as well as CONTINUATION my right hand – it’s even getting hard to write
the Miles Davis recordings…
John McLaughlin – but the only thing I have no problem with is
Tony was one of the most passionate players playing the guitar. Isn’t that far out? It doesn’t
I’ve ever played with, and I was crazy about Black Light bother me at all. I’m still paying a price for the
Larry Young – later Khalid Yasin. He was like ★★★★ six-week goodbye tour of America we did last
McCoy Tyner, in that he played these ABSTRACT LOGIX, 2015
year with the Jimmy Herring band, which is
harmonies that were very liberating to an McLaughlin’s most recent studio why I’m not going to do a lot of tours any more.
improviser. As a trio, we were loud, and Tony LP is his third with his eclectic But I’m working on a live record of the San
didn’t care about the wackachucka or the 4th Dimension band. Tributes Francisco concert from that tour, because it
boom-boom – I guess as a drummer he already to late collaborators include
was a really good night. I know people don’t
had that stuff down – so sometimes we’d go the flamenco flavours of El
Hombre Que Sabià, dedicated buy albums any more, but I’m old-school, Ben,
very far out. He would sing a Brazilian song and I’m going to make a CD.
TTom Sheehan

to trio amigo Paco De Lucia, and Come The Jiis, M

I’d recite some poetry over it.
honouring Remember Shakti partner Mandolin John McLaughlin & The 4th Dimension/Jimmy
Today, the second Lifetime album, Turn It Srinivas with ripping synth tones. As ever, there’s Herring & The Invisible Whip – Live In San Francisco, is
Over, sounds like one of the great post-punk a side of soul – sympathy for Palestine seeps released by Abstract Logix on September 21.
from Gaza City. Not his last studio set, surely? DE

MOJO 37
For a few dollars more:
The Upsetters at the
heart of the Trojan
Records panoply.
 A VC10 touches down at Heathrow and nine Jamaicans shuffle
onto the tarmac, shivering under the cold morning sun. They are
producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, his Upsetters band, and vocal trio
The Pioneers. A few press photos are hastily snapped before they’re
hustled through immigration and customs, and then on to dicey
digs in the heart of Paddington’s red-light district.
“At the time, we all had hits in the charts,” says Sidney Crooks of
The Pioneers. “But we all stayed at the Edward Hotel and the
Arama Hotel, the two of them facing each other in Praed Street.”
“Everything was so different,” adds Pioneer Jackie Robinson.
“We were young and adventurous – fearless, even – so it was fun.”
It was early days for a Jamaican reggae band in Britain, with
Desmond Dekker and The Ethiopians the only acts to have
previously toured here, but The Upsetters and The Pioneers would
reach further and wider. In six weeks, they travelled from
Doncaster to Torquay and back again, playing to skinheads a
Manchester’s New Century Hall and Caribbean immigrants at the
Kensal Rise ABC, before sharing a bill with Dekker and skinhead its name, the label subsequently lay dormant until 1967,
favourites Symarip at the Purley Orchid. The Upsetters capped became one of Reid’s rocksteady imprints. Meanwhile, Island Re-
their jaunt with a Radio 2 broadcast shared with Tom Jones and a cords founder Chris Blackwell was distributing Jamaican product in
Top Of The Pops appearance, recorded in Holland. Britain from the back of his Mini Cooper and launched the UK
“I remember we fly over just to do the TV show,” says Upsetters branch of Trojan to carry Reid’s releases. But with its USP already
bassist and future Wailers mainstay, Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett. “It compromised – Blackwell’s former partner Graeme Goodall was
was just one cut, one take, and we did it like we were professionals. also distributing Reid productions on his Doctor Bird label –
We were all in different colours; it’s a beautiful show.” activity on the fledgling Trojan was soon suspended.
Two releases on an obscure label – Trojan – had blazed the Trojan’s reactivation in the latter half of 1968 came
trail. The Upsetters’ off-kilter saxophone instrumental through connections formed by Jamaican expatriates in
Return Of Django had seemed ubiquitous in late London’s music underbelly. After experiencing
’69 and peaked at Number 5 on the UK pop problems with a landlord who objected to the
charts, though Family Man feels it would many black visitors frequenting his flat in
have been higher if not for a domestic dis- genteel Kensington, Chris Blackwell began
pute. “When we were to come on tour to renting work space at 108 Cambridge
carry it to Number 1, Scratch get a stab Road, Kilburn from aspiring accountant
in his arm from one of his ladies,” he Leichman ‘Lee’ Gopthal, a Jamaican of
recalls. “We have to wait two months, East Indian descent living upstairs.
so by the time we come we could only Gopthal’s mechanic father Sikarum
reach it to Number 5.” came to Britain on the Empire Wind-
The Pioneers’ live dates would keep rush in 1948 and, after purchasing the
their racetrack saga Long Shot Kick The building, operated as a tailor on the
Bucket in the UK Top 40 until the fol- ground floor. Gopthal Senior brought his
lowing Januar y, lending the group teenage son to join him in Kilburn in 1958,
stellar status in Britain, soon to become but returned to Jamaica a few years later,
their adopted home. leaving young Lee in control of the building.
Back in Jamaica, the significance of the break- While working for a local accountancy firm,
through was not lost on insurance salesman-turned- Gopthal reluctantly began renting the basement to
producer Harry Johnson, an opportunist with a good ear Jamaican carpenter, sound system proprietor and
for hits. Looking to repeat the success of Django, he salvaged a Planetone Records founder Sonny Roberts, who turned the space
wonky organ instrumental from another unsuccessful vocal record- into Britain’s first black-owned recording studio in 1962, with
ing, Noel Bailey’s What Am I To Do. The result, The Liquidator, future Specials trombonist Rico Rodriguez leading the house band.
cracked the UK Top 10 in October 1969 and stayed in the charts for Roberts subsequently introduced Blackwell to Gopthal, and after
the next five months; it blares out at UK football grounds to this day. seeing his tenants enjoy some degree of success selling ska, Gopthal
During an era when BBC staff were often dismissive of Jamaican decided to enter the vinyl game, partly at the suggestion of
music, with premier Radio 1 disc jockey Tony Blackburn deriding it Blackwell and his right-hand man at Island, David Betteridge. So in
as “rubbish” and disrespectfully misnaming it “reggie music” on air, 1963, together with future Charisma Records founder Tony
the chart onslaught and nationwide tours were unprecedented feats. Stratton-Smith, Gopthal formed the Beat & Commercial company
Hits by singing duo Bob And Marcia, with a cover of Nina Simone’s to distribute Jamaican music – especially Island’s – initially selling
To Be Young, Gifted And Black, and Jimmy Cliff with the powerful records to the Jamaican expatriate community door to door. He
original Wonderful World, Beautiful People quickly followed. opened the Musicland record shop on Willesden Lane in 1966,
Reggae had arrived as a viable force outside of the West Indies and which soon mushroomed into a chain of shops across the capital
the company spearheading the shift was Trojan Records, achieving (later complemented by sister chain, Muzik City). The following
the seemingly impossible in its first year of official operation. year, B&C began releasing Jamaican music, licensing material from
Studio One’s Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd in conjunction with
ROJAN ALREADY BOASTED A MORE CONVOLUTED Blackwell, just as Blackwell and Island’s interests began to broaden.
backstory than the average record label. The name was first As Blackwell explains, “I started to really not be involved in
used by Jamaican producer Duke Reid in 1958, referencing Jamaican music at all. Personally, I was focusing on Traffic and then
the British-made flatbed truck he used to transport his sound Free – rock’n’roll, essentially. So it was decided to merge Island’s
system across the island. But with a sole Lord Power calypso 78 to reggae music with B&C, and the new label was called Trojan.”

40 MOJO
 Trojan warriors: (from
far left) The Upsetters;
Bob Andy And Marcia
Griffiths; Jimmy Cliff;
(inset) skinhead teens
in October 1969.

With an iconic new helmet logo

designed by CCS Advertising Associates,
Trojan was now home to any kind of reggae,
recorded in Britain as well as Jamaica,
rather than the output of a single Jamaican
producer. And although Blackwell shifted
Betteridge and fellow Island A&R staff Gra-
ham Walker and Rob Bell to the new Trojan
setup, Blackwell took a decidedly backseat
role; Lee Gopthal remained Trojan’s chief driving force.
“Lee was like our godfather,” says Chips Richards,
who joined Trojan’s promotions department in 1973, “a
very kind-hearted, helpful and practical man who came
up the hard way. I used to play a sound system in Shep- we put the record out, Trojan said, ‘We’re going to
herd’s Bush called Count Steve, and Lee had a Musicland sue you,’ and I said, No, we’re going to sue you.’”
shop in the market, run by Webster Shrowder. Lee used Formed by three black Jamaican immigrants,
to come round to the shop with a briefcase f Pama primarily catered to Britain’s Caribbean com-
records. Webster and Desmond Bryan used to ri munities, while Trojan’s marketing campaigns
around on scooters selling the records at dances.” targeted a wider multi-ethnic public. “The master-
stroke Trojan had was their budget series, Tighten
ROJAN’S FIRST UK CHART SUCCESS Up,” says Don Letts, the DJ and Big Audio Dynamite co-
had been Tony Tribe’s reggae rendition of ounder who was introduced to Trojan by his father’s
Neil Diamond’s Red Red Wine, for the und system. “It seemed like they were
London-based singer/producer Robert ‘Dandy’ gles non-stop and the compilations
Livingstone, which briefly punctured the UK Top no filler, at a time when we’re teenagers
50 in July 1969. By the end of the year, new mater ord to buy four or five singles every
was flying out thick and fast, but double-d n Up Volume 2 has a half-naked woman
remained a perennial problem, since producers s so they knew their demographic.”
licensed the same product to Pama Records, Trojan’s c ent skinhead movement flocked to
Getty (4), Alamy, Courtesy Trojan

“We had a lot of tricksters then,” recalls Pama co against a backdrop of heightened
Harry Palmer. “They would take your money for one ial tension; as Tory demagogue Enoch
and give it to Trojan, and they’d take Trojan’s mone owell warned of “rivers of blood”, the
give you theirs too, so sometimes we were putting out music and style of black Jamaicans cap-
same records. The Liquidator – both of us had tivated Britain’s white working-class
the same rights to the record: Harry J was Mix-up pioneers:
Chris Blackwell in
youth. “It was a music-driven subcul-
signed to us and he gave it to Trojan. So when 1968, and (above) ture that followed on the heels of ➢
Trojan ‘godfather’
Lee Gopthal.
MOJO 41
 ➣
the Mods, and Trojan comes along and provides the perfect
soundtrack,” says Letts. “And we’ve got to be clear that the skin-
heads I’m talking about were a fashion version, not the fascist ver-
sion that would emerge in the mid ’70s.”
With Gopthal, Betteridge and company making the most of
exposed many of their Jamaican connections, scouring the island for hot new hits,
Marley’s finest tunes Trojan’s reggae authenticity held massive appeal. Producers were
(1969) (Lively Up Yourself; the main point of contact and Lee Perry says the payment they
Mimicking Berry Gordy’s Trenchtown Rock) in
their vibrant
received was based more on status than the quality of the record-
Motown Chartbusters,
this landmark first instal- formative versions. ings, with Harry Johnson earning top dollar.
ment of Trojan’s key “When me go to London, me have a portion of songs, so me give
compilation series them maybe two albums and if them give you £600, you might be
gathered up latest hits
from affiliated
thought into Trojan’s lucky,” Perry recalls. “Harry J was getting big money from Trojan,
relaunch in the early but Trojan wasn’t paying us too much money. The smaller guys, it’s
producers Duke Reid, (1973)
’00s, yielding some truly
Lee Perry and Byron Lee, Another very influential
excellent curated only a small advance that we get.”
all for 14s/6d – the cost of artist album, showcas-
comps, such as this one
two 45s. Later volumes ing the maverick DJ
from BBC Radio’s first N THE POSITIVE SIDE, TROJAN INVESTMENT WAS
featured questionably whose toasting over
lady of reggae, who
‘saucy’ artwork. well-known pop-reggae
gathers up fabulously
opening up new markets for Jamaican music, sometimes by
rhythms like No, No, No adding lavish orchestrations to existing recordings. Cliff ’s
recherché cuts in JA’s
was likely many Brits’
first exposure to the
vocal-group tradition by Wonderful World, Beautiful People became a chart hit through the
the Absyssinians, strings grafted onto the record by arranger Johnny Arthey.
style. Screaming Target’s
Melodians and more.
madcap but street- When Trojan record plugger Clive Crawley had Arthey score
tough thrills duly Bob Andy and Marcia Griffiths’ Young, Gifted And Black at Chalk
became obligatory
listening on London’s Farm, they blew Pama’s string-free version out of the water with
fledgling punk scene. another Top 5 chart hit in the spring of 1970. The lovestruck duo
had scored Jamaican success with the autobiographical Really
(2005) Together at Studio One, where Andy mentored Griffiths following
Also on Sanctuary’s his departure from The Paragons, but they became household
agenda: sweeping up
(1980)
lost roots masterpieces.
names in Britain through the Trojan release, touring with Elton
Though the consolida- John in support of it. “We came up first for Top Of The Pops and
tion years under Saga This one was actually a
(1969) yielded few ‘new’ collection of the Cool those were some beautiful moments, with the orchestra playing
As reggae’s emerging classics, this triple-LP Ruler’s JA singles circa live,” says Marcia Griffiths. “It was exciting to see that our fans were
star, Cliff cut several box set connected many ’76-77, but still has a rare
albums before breaking album cohesion. With
mainly young white kids, skinheads even.”
punks and ska
through with this Leslie revivalists with 48 themes of political During their extended London sojourn, Bob And Marcia
Kong-produced classic. massive tunes from the violence, police hassle, became one of the transplanted reggae acts to directly benefit from
Including Many Rivers ska, rocksteady and and downtrodden rasta Trojan A&R, resulting in another hit in the summer of 1971 with an
To Cross and Wonderful early reggae eras. love trysts, plus blanket
World, Beautiful People, ace tunes, it belongs in orchestrated cover of Crispian St Peters’ Pied Piper. “We were
it played a massive part any roots Top 10. living in Lewisham,” Griffiths continues, “and every day, Bob would
in convincing people get up and fuss about the weather, and we’d get lost driving from
that this exotic music Lewisham to Trojan Records in Neasden, so he would curse all day.
might involve quality
(1989) But I was the total opposite: even getting lost, I used to enjoy it!”
songcraft.
In the decade after Lee In March 1971, Dave And Ansel Collins’ Double Barrel won
‘Scratch’ Perry torched
his Black Ark, collectors
(2007) another accolade for Trojan: the first reggae UK Number 1 single
were still scrambling to An early sighting of since Desmond Dekker’s Israelites. Dave Collins had sung it as a
find everything he’d Trojan branding, taken one-off for producer Winston Riley and was dumbstruck when he
(1970) from Reid’s own label in
recorded there. This heard it had charted overseas. “Winston Riley said, ‘Gentleman, it
Veterans of JA’s ska era, JA, featured on Island’s
3-LP set assembled lost
Toots Hibbert’s vocal original late-’60s vinyl seems like Double Barrel kick up storm ah England.’ And my
masterworks including
trio were just emerging issue of this comp of
from a UK market-driven
Junior Delgado’s Sons response was, No, mon! Them people no really know ’bout
Of Slaves, The Congos’ Reid’s rocksteady
phase of bawdy singles. So, when
music… Double Barrel was just a thing I did to hold some change.”
Neckodeemus, plus
material, when they cut
Junior Murvin’s Police Sanctuary reissued it, Collins thought it the answer to his prayers, but was in for a rude
this masterpiece of with three vinyl albums’ awakening in London. “When we left Jamaica, we had to rush to go
And Thieves, recast as
driving early reggae. worth of bonus tracks
Both Pressure Drop
Bad Weed. buy stage clothes and each man hold just one suit,” he recalls. “We
on 2-CDs, it was like
(karmic revenge) and Reid’s music had finally
had to rush to Top Of The Pops with no socks on and I was meeting
the hilarious title track come home. Lulu and Rod Stewart, so I was in another world. We toured all over
(jilted jealousy) have
been much covered, but
the place for six months, doing three shows a night and I must say,
no one has matched the plenty clothes, the heap of money and the nice place we didn’t
Hibbert’s vocal power. really get, because Riley push we into some rat-infested places. One
night on stage, I started to make some dance moves and a voice in
the audience said, ‘Be careful now, don’t forget it’s only the one suit
(2003)
New owners
you’ve got.’ So I had to follow Winston Riley up to Trojan and he
Sanctuary put gave me a thousand pounds, which I used to suit out myself and
(1973) considerable helped to buy trousers for some of the guys. All I got from Double
Trojan put out the Barrel was one thousand pounds!”
Getty, Adrian Boot/urbanimage.tv

Wailers’ first LP with

Lee Perry, 1970’s
Soul Rebels, but after ESPITE BEING BRITAIN’S PREMIER
shelving a second, reggae label, Trojan’s business was precarious
soon reconsidered throughout the early 1970s. Bob Marley & The
when the band Wailers looked a likely bet for UK success but the Tro-
broke through on
Dreadlocks lover: jan-released Soul Rebels album failed to break the band.
Island. Combining the extra classic
Soul Revolution with Gregory Isaacs. Recorded at Randy’s studio in downtown Kingston for Lee
some early singles
 Rebel soul: Lee
‘Scratch’ Perry at
‘Scratch’ Perry, it was conceived as a concept album, but was too Black Ark studio,
Kingston, 1978.
ahead of its time to chime with overseas listeners. Trojan’s racy cover,
showing an apprehensive-looking model in combat fatigues holding
a sub-machine gun, certainly detracted from the serious militancy of
songs like 400 Years. And in a myopic move, Trojan refused to issue
the group’s stunning Perry-produced follow-up Soul Revolution and
its instrumental counterpart Soul Revolution II, though many of the
vocal tracks were later released on the Rasta Revolution and African
Herbsman compilations, following The Wailers’ global breakthrough.
In 1972, Chris Blackwell exited the Trojan partnership, and the
split forced the sale of the Musicland chain, though Gopthal retained
13 Muzik City shops. B&C continued to benefit from the distribu-
tion of popular Charisma titles by Genesis, Lindisfarne, Nazareth
and Steeleye Span, which helped keep Trojan afloat, but problems
remained. The label was issuing exceptional albums by the new wave
of deejays, including U Roy, Big Youth and I Roy, and dub albums by
King Tubby and Augustus Pablo, and still scoring hits with sentimental
cover tunes – John Holt’s take on Kris Kristofferson’s Help Me Make
It Through The Night stayed in the charts for 13 weeks in early 1975
– but sinking money into developing its own artists, as
Blackwell was now doing at Island, had not generated
the hoped-for returns. Even as Ken Boothe’s
emotive version of Bread’s Everything I Own
hit Number 1 in October ’74, Trojan was in
debt to the Kensal Road pressing plant
owned by Marcel Rodd, proprietor of
budget classical music label Saga.
Trojan’s situation reached a tipping
point when Charisma moved distribu-
tion to Phonogram in May 1975.
“When Tony Stratton-Smith pulled
away from B&C, Lee Gopthal was left
with nothing to sell other than the little tographer Dave Hendley came on board
reggae we had,” says Chips Richards. to license superb material from Sugar
“B&C had 18 reps, but only about six of us Minott, Mikey Dread and Prince Jammy;
worked for Trojan and B&C couldn’t pay for he also assembled the excellent Rebel Music
the successful Trojan records that were in the compilation and oversaw the popular Creation
national charts.” Rockers retrospective series. Then, in the 1980s, as
Gopthal and Marcel Rodd negotiated to s dancehall captured the attention of Jamaican music
tle Trojan’s debt. Gopthal hoped for a loan o fans – an enthusiasm less shared by international audiences –
some kind of partnership, but Rodd was less rojan concentrated on back catalogue. Accountant Colin New-
sympathetic. The company that flew high man, who had worked at Jet Records with Don Arden, bought
with The Liquidator would itself be liqui- Trojan from Rodd and employed Steve Barrow to look after re-
dated; its assets reverted to Rodd under the ssues, but later sold the company to Sanctuary Records in 2001
name Trojan Recordings. or £10.25 million. When Sanctuary hit the rocks, Trojan was
“Rodd looked at Lee Gopthal and said, ‘ d by Universal in 2007, passing to rival conglomerate
need to ask you a question: Are you G in 2013 after Universal’s acquisition of EMI.
Indian?’” says Chips Richards. “‘You shoul Yet, as the record company that pioneered reggae’s
be trying to run an empire. Go and get a corner shop.’ elationship with British record buyers, Trojan’s iconic
Lee just burst out crying.” tatus endures. At 50 it commands affection far
eyond its pedigree as a ‘mere’ importer of music. The
OT LEAST AMONG THE VICTIMS OF elease of the single Murder, produced by London-
Trojan’s crash were the artists it distributed. ased sound system Reggae Roast with top-ranking
“After they bankrupted the company, me and Cs Brother Culture and Charlie P on new sub-label
John Holt went to England and find that all that was an Reloaded, sees the marque come full circle,
Trojan was record covers and boxes for records,” say g brand new music once more.
Boothe. “Then Saga, which is Trojan Recordings, they call me and “Trojan introduced reggae to a global audience,” reaffirms
say that I am their artist because they buy out the contract. One time Trojan label historian Laurence Cane-Honeysett. “The effect of
I decided to work with Marcel Rodd and when I came I see the that wasn’t just opening our eyes and our ears to Jamaican music
hotel had cots, no bed. Out of that, I decided that I’m not going to and helping to promote multiculturalism, it also provided a huge
work for them, so I lock Ken Boothe off for a period.” amount of income for the Jamaican music industry. I’m not saying
“All those records that Trojan has been selling, all those records the Jamaican music industry owes it success to Trojan, but it
that went into liquidation, that’s where all the artists lose their certainly helped develop it further.”
money,” adds Lee Perry. “And me lose my money too.” “We mustn’t underplay the part that Trojan played,” says
The liquidation meant the closure of the Muzik City shops, with Don Letts. “The kids that have grown up listening to this catalogue
Gopthal forced to drive a minicab to make ends meet, though he included a lot of the punks, the Joe Strummers, the Paul
would later be A&R Director at RCA and eventually ran a successful Simonons… Before the Punky Reggae Party, it was Trojan.” M
insurance firm before his death in 1997.
Yet Rodd’s subsequent revitalisation of Trojan resulted in an- The Trojan Records’ 50th Anniversary box is released on July 27. The Story Of
other surprising golden age for the company in the late 1970s. Pho- Trojan Records by Laurence Cane-Honeysett is published by Eye Books, out now.

MOJO 43
 MOJO PRESENTS

THE WAR ON DRUGS’

unlikely meld of interstate
highway rock and shoegaze
FX wizardry has earned them
an unlikelier accolade: 2018’s
best rock album Grammy.
But can next-level success
soothe the demons of mainman
ADAM GRANDUCIEL? “It’s
just like a dream sometimes,”
he tells TOM DOYLE, “you
can’t even believe that
it’s happening.”
Photography by RACHAEL WRIGHT

T
EN MILES SOUTH OF TUCSON, AMID A ferent spot, he laughs nervously and quickly scans the ground
CinemaScope panorama of desert land, lies the around his feet. The band’s local fixer tries to assure him that there
Mission San Xavier Del Bac. The oldest existing shouldn’t be any rattlers around: too many people, not enough to
structure in the whole of Arizona, it was built eat. Granduciel isn’t convinced. “When you see them,” he notes
by early Spanish Franciscan settlers at some un- with a tense laugh, “it’s too late.”
recorded point in the late 18th century. There Granduciel has some history as a worrier. Self-doubt troubled
was originally a different church here, but it was his first steps under the War On Drugs banner, and work on his
destroyed back in 1770 in an Apache raid. Close by its successor’s third album – 2014’s Lost In The Dream – prompted something like
white stucco magnificence sits a pretty hill topped with a cross. a breakdown. His band’s maturing music, a cousin of classic drive-
Outside the mission’s doors, a Gila woodpecker comically pops its time rock veiled in transcendent otherness, earned them the Best
head out of a hole nibbled into a towering saguaro cactus. Rock Album Grammy for last year’s A Deeper Understanding – a
Temporarily freed from the travel-everywhere, see-nothing rig- massive breakthrough – but today rattlesnakes are only the most
marole of life on tour, the six members of The War On Drugs glad- obvious sources of anxiety.
ly mooch around the site, their camera phones click-click-clicking. Relocated to the safer surroundings of a dressing room at
This Tuesday afternoon detour into vast, wide-open space is their Tucson’s 1400-capacity Rialto Theatre, Granduciel shoots indoor
reward for weeks of being cooped up in a tour bus, confined to basketball hoops as someone picks out the cosmic country soul of
coffin-like bunks. Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide To Earth to spin on their flight-
Something is on bandleader Adam Granduciel’s mind, though. cased hi-fi, from a box of vinyl which also includes Neil Young’s Live
Namely, the possibility of lurking rattlesnakes. Each time the MOJO At Massey Hall, Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure and – just to be sure
photographer asks the frontman or his bandmates to move to a dif- – two copies of Joni Mitchell’s travelogue masterpiece Hejira. ➢

44 MOJO
Keeping the wolf from
the door: The War On
Drugs’ Adam Granduciel,
Mission San Xavier
Del Bac, near Tucson,
Arizona, April 17, 2018.
 Men with a Mission: The War On Drugs at
the San Xavier Del Bac (from left) Dave
Hartley, Robbie Bennett, Charlie Hall, Jon
Natchez, Anthony LaMarca, Granduciel.

➣
Post-Grammy win, the mainstream world is opening up for stage in Austin, Texas, he suffered a ruptured intervertebral disc
The War On Drugs. “Not everyone is a day-to-day crate-digger,” which required surgery. The back room of this bus has now been
Granduciel points out as he flips through the records. “Or, like, filled with a supportive Tempur-Pedic mattress to ease his nightly
even searching for music. People who watch the Grammys once a post-show pain. Pre-operation, he sometimes struggled to concen-
year might be like, ‘I’ll check them out’. It’s such a huge group of trate during the recording of A Deeper Understanding.
people who might like our music.” “A lot of time in the studio I was in so much pain I couldn’t
Next year, he will turn 40, after more than a decade of piloting focus,” he says. “I couldn’t explain an idea, couldn’t do a take,
The War On Drugs from a home recording project into a touring couldn’t make a decision.” Throughout this period of agony, he
band capable of headlining festival stages and filling arenas (includ- rejected powerful and potentially risky medication. “I wasn’t ready
ing a recently-announced date in December at the 20,000-capacity for that stage in my life yet really,” he laughs. “Pill addict.”
O2 in London). It’s been a sometimes turbulent long haul flight that Granduciel’s back story speaks of a certain restlessness – born
has almost broken him at certain points, but the singer/guitarist is Adam Granofsky in Dover, Massachusetts, he was schooled in Bos-
ready for fame proper. At this age, little, you sense, can shake him. ton, went to private college in Pennsylvania, detoured to Oakland,
“We’ve been on the road for almost 10 years,” he stresses. California, then moved to Philadelphia in 2003, where his musical
“You’re prepared musically and you kinda have this aura of goodwill life really got started at the age of 24. At the time, he was working in
that you’re trying to spread from city to city.” property management: changing light bulbs, fixing toilets, clearing
out basements. Among one crew of fellow janitors he met War On

S
TANDING IN THE ALLEYWAY OUTSIDE THE RIALTO, Drugs’ wry, knowing bassist David Hartley. “It was a motley, sort of
Granduciel stubs out his roll-up and invites MOJO onto one murderers’ row of fucked-up band guys,” Hartley explains to
of The War On Drugs’ two tour buses. Before punching an MOJO. “Drug users, kleptomaniacs. Adam was always just the fun-
entry code into the bus’s door, though, he stops to chat and sign niest guy in the room.”
albums for a handful of fans including a chipper English bloke, For Granduciel, it felt as if he’d suddenly landed in the middle
Dave, now living in Seattle, who’s travelled down from Washington of a group of like-minded, artful souls. Particularly when, on the
State to follow the band through Arizona. Philly scene, he met Kurt Vile, his foil in The War On Drugs for
“I don’t need there to be a thousand people at the stage door to their first two albums, the murky lo-fi folk rock of 2008’s Wagon-
feel validated,” says Granduciel, as he parks himself at a table and wheel Blues and its dreamier 2011 successor, Slave Ambient, the
cracks open a bottle of San Pellegrino. “But there’s always one or common thread being unmistakable strains of Bob Dylan, Tom
two and it’s awesome. That’s easier for me, to have a conversation Petty and The Waterboys.
with a few people, where I feel less nervous or just less on the spot.” “I was really excited to be creating music,” he says. “I’d been
Granduciel emits laidback and breezy vibes befitting a long- recording by myself for maybe two years at the point I moved to
haired, band T-shirt-and-jeans appearance that makes him look Philly. But I didn’t really have anyone that I could jam with or
more like a roadie for The War On Drugs than their frontman. As record with. When I met Kurt, that’s when I kind of found the push
Rachael Wright (5)

our conversation rolls on over close to two hours, however, particu- and pull of a friendship and partnership.”
larly when discussing the more doubtful or panicky moments in his Following a European tour in support of Slave Ambient, Vile quit
past, a perceptible uneasiness resurfaces. the band to concentrate on his parallel solo career. The two have
There’s a slight physical vulnerability to him, too. In 2016, on- remained friends, says Granduciel. When A Deeper Understanding

46 MOJO
 “I found the push and pull of
friendship and partnership”:
Granduciel on-stage in Tucson;
(below) the full FX; (insets left) a
cactus stands in for our camera-shy
frontman; the Tucson theatre.

“DURING A DEEPER
UNDERSTANDING I
WAS IN SO MUCH PAIN
I COULDN’T FOCUS.
I COULDN’T EXPLAIN
AN IDEA, COULDN’T
MAKE A DECISION.”
Adam Granduciel
bagged the Grammy, Vile texted him to say he was “psyched” about coming up out of the crowd,” Hartley will say of this not-unfamiliar
the win. sight at War On Drugs shows. “It’s like, Now we’ve got ’em, we can
Back at the time of Slave Ambient, though, Granduciel wasn’t do anything we want.”
entirely convinced by his own music. “I was trying to wrangle these

W
sounds that I didn’t really think was our sound,” he admits. “And ITH LOST IN THE DREAM, THE WAR ON DRUGS
yet it was what we were playing. I wanted to do something that felt ascended to another level, albeit one on which Adam
better or more real or whatever. But, y’know, just with the… self- Granduciel wasn’t comfortable at first. For him, the al-
doubt, what would that end up being?” bum’s two-year recording process had been acutely angst-ridden.
That record was Lost In The Dream, The War On Drugs’ 2014 The after-effect was on-stage panic attacks. The first hit him mid-
giant leap forward, in both creative and commercial terms. A re- way through a show at the Falls Festival in Australia.
cord that refracted classic ’70s and ’80s rock through a prism of “I’d been living for a whole year pretty much pent-up,” he ad-
trippiness, it was straight-sounding enough for the radio, weird mits. “Then all of a sudden we’re on a plane, and we’re in Australia
enough for the heads, and replete with lyrical confessions of inner and we’re in some remote festival. It was too soon for me to be out
turmoil that were universal enough to appeal to virtually all. in the middle of nowhere. You’re playing a song and the stage was,
Tonight in Tucson, the band’s crossover appeal is evidenced by like, rumbling. I was just kinda confused.”
their pan-generational crowd, from air-punching teens to older, In striving for some kind of greatness, Granduciel had beaten
appreciatively-nodding rockers who’ve retired to the sleepy Arizona himself up, offloading his conflicting emotions into songs such as
city. Everyone in the room, it seems, is slowly entranced by The War Under The Pressure and Suffering. Anxiety issues forced him to
On Drugs’ hypnotic pull, particularly when the longer songs weave ditch alcohol and weed, but even that didn’t help. His bandmates
a jam-band spell, prompting crops of twirling hippyish handshapes were growing concerned for him.
to rise above the heads of the audience. The scent of furtively-vaped “Really concerned,” nods Hartley. “He was having a mental
skunk hangs in the air. breakdown, y’know. He became like an ascetic. Normally you’d be
“I love when you look out and there’s clouds of weed smoke stoked if one of your friends was into clean living. But it was way, ➢

MOJO 47
“I consider myself fairly
socially awkward”:
Granduciel and bandmates
relax at a Tucson taco
stand; (below) stepping
out with actor and partner
Krysten Ritter, 2016 .

“I STARTED NOTICING
YOUNG MEN STANDING
BY THE BUS, BEING All is calm in the backstage warren of dressing rooms and com-
LIKE, ‘I NEED TO TALK munal eating area. Granduciel is in a good mood, and the rule
seems to be, if the leader is happy, then everyone is happy. In
TO ADAM.’ THESE another interview, Dave Hartley recently described The War On
DESPERATE SOULS…” Drugs as a “totalitarian regime”. “Yeah,” Granduciel smiles. “He’s
expressed regret over that. But I know what he means.”
David Hartley “That wasn’t a joke,” Hartley later insists. “It’s true. I mean,
➣ saying that makes it sound oppressive. But it’s not. I think it’s the
way extreme.” The bassist remembers the frontman at the time reason the band has survived so long.”
carrying around a bag of Ativan sedative pills, but being determined For the creation of A Deeper Understanding, Granduciel co-
not to take them. “But he kept looking at them,” he adds. “He cooned himself in Sonora Recorders in the Griffith Park area of Los
looked terrified all the time. Just having some pretty intense panic.” Angeles for 15 months, with the band flying there from Philadelphia
Granduciel sighs at the memory. “Just, yeah, heavy panic. In the every four weeks. As the album’s title implies, it was a no less inten-
moment, it takes up your entire life.” The very act of making Lost sive, but far less intense process than its predecessor’s. Granduciel
In The Dream was a panic-avoidance distraction for his overheating even allowed himself the odd puff of weed to temporarily forget that
mind. “You do what you can to exercise your brain muscles,” he he was driving this now much-bigger vehicle for his songwriting.
says. “To try to express what you’re feeling.” “Day-to-day, I don’t do it,” he says. “Only when I’m in the midst
In this way, the album made another deep co ti f making a record, with other people around. It wasn’t
drawing out other troubled individuals who identifie ke I was playing better ’cos I was puffing. It just helped
its rawly-expressed emotions. “On the first Europea me detach from the producer role.”
on that Lost… run,” remembers Hartley, “I started n If Granduciel is still too close to his music to truly
ing young men standing by the bus, being like, ‘I nee understand why The War On Drugs’ fan-base is rap-
talk to Adam.’ You could see they were like, ‘I’m in idly expanding, then ebullient drummer Charlie
trouble.’ These desperate souls and here was this Hall has a theory. “On the one hand, this music is
document that spoke to them.” breezy and roll-the-windows-down-and-cruise,” he
The next day, the tour rolls on just over 100 miles says. “And then there’s another level that you can
north-west to Phoenix, where the downtown streets really get inside. Even in the old days, we’d just be
around the venue, the 1800-capacity Van Buren, are playing some little room, going full-throttle, and I’d
oddly empty, even on a Wednesday afternoon. Out- be thinking to myself, This is music that would trans-
side its entrance, English Dave sits on a camping te into bigger venues.”
stool, waiting for the doors to open to secure himself “I’m sometimes amazed at what we’ve accom-
Rachael Wright (5), Getty

a place at the front-of-stage barrier. Inside, Gran- ished,” marvels Granduciel. “I wouldn’t say it’s taken
duciel strums on a rare 1970s electric guitar tha e by surprise because I dove head-in. I’ve spent a lot
another fan has brought along with a view to trading time on the records and just the whole operation.
for one from the WOD man’s collection. The singe ut it’s just like a dream sometimes. You can’t even
tempted, but decides that, nah, he doesn’t really nee lieve that it’s happening.”

48 MOJO
 Up all night: (clockwise
from this pic) WOD on-stage
in Phoenix; backstage and
sounchecking there too;
flying off the rails in Tucson.

DAM GRANDUCIEL STILL FEELS LIKE TOO MUCH

A of a fan to imagine mixing with his heroes on a comparable

footing. He does entertain certain fantasies, though.
Walking into a waffle house in Phoenix, he’d see Bob Dylan and
Towards a DEEPER
UNDERSTANDING…
his bassist Tony Garnier sitting up at the bar, watching a baseball
game on TV, and he’d feel loose and casual enough to wander up to The War On Drugs LOST IN THE AM
them and chat. Or he’d pull into a rest stop in New Jersey and spot on record: all (Secretly Canadian, 2
Bruce Springsteen and a buddy on their motorbikes. “I guess if it highs, no lows! A document of
was a certain scenario…” he muses, a smile playing on his lips. “I internal turmoil, but
consider myself fairly socially awkward, so I don’t even know what By JOHN MULVEY. one that seems
purpose built for
I would say or do.” WAGONWHEE UES wide open spaces.
Not that Granduciel hasn’t some star presence of his own. Per- (Secretly Canadian, 200
Granduciel’s big
forming Under The Pressure at the Van Buren tonight, there’s a breakthrough retools Neu!’s
TWOD’s debut leans motorik groove and drift for the
moment during its extended coda of abstract, atmospheric noise heavier on rackety American freeway, with such
where he stands behind pillars of white light, beaming up from the Dylan jangle than aerodynamic grandeur that his anxi-
later albums, and ety-laden lyrics became the
front of the stage like a spectral safety curtain. He looks utterly Kurt Vile’s garage soundtrack for mass air-punching.
commanding and completely in control. aesthetic is Has a self-deprecating line like “I’m
Then, 14 songs in, midway through the wistful Eyes To The pronounced. Still, Adam Granduciel a bit run down here at the moment”
works mighty hard to articulate his ever sounded quite so heroic?
Wind, something happens. Granduciel suddenly calls a halt to the expansive vision within lower-fi
song, declaring, “It’s all fucked up and everybody knows it.” The confines: witness the pounding
rest of the band shift uneasily, launching into Burning, before spon- forward momentum of A Needle In A DEEPER
taneously returning to Eyes To The Wind in an almost apologetic Your Eye #16, Granduciel’s first stab UNDERSTAND
at a Springsteenian big music, “new (Atlantic, 2017)
acoustic form. The encore is ditched and the show is over. jet plane”, “midnight train” and all.
Relocated to LA
Backstage, no one speaks of the incident, but there’s an awkward and a little more
atmosphere. Under his breath, Hartley explains to MOJO that the SLAVE AMBIE laidback, major
frontman had suffered a “turn”. Ten minutes later, Granduciel re- (Secretly Canadian, 2 label deal
With Vile mostly notwithstanding,
turns from a post-show cigarette, back to his usual hey-whatever self. gone (he features on Granduciel’s
And so, it seems, the road taking The War On Drugs upwards only two songs), neurotic energy is rechannelled
and onwards is not one without the odd emotional pothole for their Granduciel’s plan is away from soul-searching, towards
more precisely an even more obsessive attention
leader to negotiate. In the end, Adam Granduciel prefers it that way. to texture and detail. The ’80s
realised, as he layers
“Some of the best music,” he says, “the music we all collectively dreamrock guitars over stream-of- Springsteen touches remain –
love, is the stuff that always feels like it’s about to fly off the rails. consciousness anthems and metal note the glockenspiel chime in
Any classic record, it’s there. It’s a little on edge.” machine ambience. Your Love Is Holding On – but new spaces
M
Calling My Name and Come To The open up, too; Thinking Of A Place,
City, especially, reveal a new way of over 11 minutes, locates an unlikely
The War On Drugs headline the Mountain Stage at Green Man Festival on harnessing the gravity of heartland sweet spot between Ditch-era
August 19. rock,minus crassness or bluster. Neil Young and Bruce Hornsby.

MOJO 49
Expecting to fly: Blaze
Foley, 1981. He “always
had a tremendous life
force,” says former
partner Sybil Rosen.
 Hippy cowboy
dreamed of matching Townes Van Zandt.
He wrote the songs. He downed the shots.
But recognition eluded him. Thirty years
after his violent death, with a heart-
breaking biopic starring Kris Kristofferson
and Alynda Segarra, that’s about to change.
“Blaze had ideas about being a legend,”
friends tell .
Portrait by
 HE PA R A M O UN T ensitivity, his voice. He was emotional
Theatre in Austin, Texas, nd transparent.”
March 16, 2018: an un- He was also his own worst enemy. As
likely mix of regular Hawke’s film captures in non-linear form,
Southern folk, visiting Foley’s anti-commercialism verged on
Hollywood superstars elf-destruction. According to his late,
and Austin musicians reat friend Townes Van Zandt, he was
have gathered amid the a friend of the homeless, the poor, a real
classical revival splen- uper caring guy.” But he let alcohol-
dour of a hundred-year-old cinema to celebrate nfused wilfulness get the better of him.
a singer who never had a hit, never got a tour “It was idyllic in the early days,” says
together, and ended up getting banned from Rosen of life in the treehouse, which, for
most of the Texas dives he bagged a gig at. On the he first four months of their residency,
red carpet outside, Ethan Hawke is talking to didn’t have any walls. “We were so broke,
reporters about Blaze, his self-described “gonzo ut the woods were beautiful, there was a
indie country’n’western movie” which captures reek, and it was peaceful. We were young
in impressionistic form the short life and wild nd in love. Although there was an under-
talent of the outlaw country singer Blaze Foley. urrent of things we hadn’t resolved,
Inside the Paramount, JT Van Zandt, son of hildhood pain and fears about the future
Foley’s songwriting hero Townes Van Zandt, is nd a general lack of confidence, it was a
recalling the trials of growing up around an remendous adventure. There was inti-
errant but brilliant father and his equally disso- macy between two people trying to help
lute friend. Alynda Segarra, the Puerto Rican ach other, to understand each other.
New Yorker who with her band Hurray For The Riff That’s when he began to think of himself as
Raff has taken on Foley’s mantle as a country-folk a songwriter.”
defender of the underdog, is chatting to Foley’s sister After those first months of rustic bliss, Foley
Marsha Weldon, whom Segarra plays in the movie. Ben and Rosen moved to Austin with the aim of
Dickey, a songwriter and former chef from Arkansas aunching his career. And that’s where the
without prior acting experience, who received a special problems started.
jury prize at this year’s Sundance film festival for his “When we lived in the treehouse we didn’t go
starring role in Blaze, is performing a handful of his to bars. We would go to a friend’s house, have
alter ego’s classics: Clay Pigeons, If I Could Only Fly, beers, share joints and go home. And falling
Moonlight. When he was shot dead by the son of a down drunk on grass is different to falling
friend on January 31, 1989, Foley was just another down drunk on cement. He was big, I was
would-have-been on the Austin open-mike scene. Now small, and all of a sudden it looked dangerous
he is a phenomenon. for him to be so drunk in public.”
Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and John Prine have The couple moved into a tumbledown
covered his songs. Blaze’s Blues by Van Zandt and Drunk- apartment in Austin, where Rosen became a
en Angel by Lucinda Williams are about him. In 2011 waitress to pay the bills and Foley tried – and,
Foley was the subject of Duct Tape Messiah, a documen- for the most part, failed – to break into the
tary named after his fondness for holding cowboy city’s music scene. He headed to Atlanta for a
boots, shirts and jackets together with duct tape. month to play bar dates, before passing through
Perhaps the person most surprised by all the hoopla Houston, Chicago and back to Austin again.
around Foley at the Paramount is a small, curly- Despite the increasing poignancy and honesty of his
haired woman who, it turns out, was the great love of ongs, he was met with indifference. There is a scene
his life. Before the boozing and bitterness took hold, n Blaze where he smashes up his guitar on the street
Foley spent an idyllic nine months living in a tree- fter a sparse Chicago crowd talks through his per-
house in the Georgia woods with Sybil Rosen. Her ormance. According to Rosen, it’s an accurate ren-
aptly titled memoir, Living In A Tree In The Woods, dering of what went down one night at a country bar
formed the basis of Ethan Hawke’s film. alled Kiley’s.
“Blaze always had a tremendous life force,” says “You could track our relationship by the quality
Rosen. “It seems that is still pushing forward, even f the real estate,” she says. “First we had the Shan-
after his death.” gri-La of the treehouse. Then we moved into a
Much of Blaze Foley’s mystique, however, has been unky apartment in Austin. Then in Chicago we were
based around his obscurity. That looks like it is about n a dreadful place where we shared the bathroom
to change. with all kinds of people and there were junkies in the
obby. At that concert in Chicago he was drunk and
L AZE FOLEY WAS BORN MICHAEL ngry and he saw something which at the time I
David Fuller on December 5, 1949 in Malvern dn’t: that I could not live this life. So he left me. I
Arkansas, the polio-stricken child of a Chris ’t even know we were breaking up. I just thought he
singer mother and an adulterous, gambling father wh ing because that’s what he did.”
and went until alcoholism drove him to end his days in a mental In March 1977 Foley headed to New Orleans during Mardi
institution. Sybil Rosen, then an aspiring writer and actress, met Gras. There he wrote If I Could Only Fly, a heartbreakingly tender
Foley in the spring of 1975 at an art community in Whitesburg, love letter to Rosen that also served as an apology for his own fail-
Georgia, where she found herself fascinated by this six-foot-four ings. “He came back to Chicago and sang it to me at the fireplace in
hippy cowboy. my apartment, but by then I had a sense of the kind of life I needed
“He called himself ‘Depty Dawg’ back then. He was singing to lead and it wasn’t with him.” In June in New York – on the same
when I first met him, which was in his favour. My immediate night Foley met Townes Van Zandt for the first time – Rosen broke
impression was that everything about him was on the surface: his up with him for good.

52 MOJO
 “Everything about Blaze was on the surface:
his sensitivity, his voice. He was emotional
and transparent.”
“It was a tremendous adventure”: Foley, Sybil nce on him with total disregard,” says
Rosen and resident dog Sandra in the treehouse,
December 1975; (below) Blaze visiting his sister han Hawke. “I’ve seen a lot of film
Marsha in 1983. He wears a stethoscope to listen ectors treat Hollywood financiers the
to his guitar picking; Rosen’s memoir; (opposite,
from top) poster for the movie; Foley on record. me way. With creative people, there is so
en a contempt for anyone with the
OLEY RETURNED TO AUSTIN wer to deny or give them their dreams.”
to begin a new life as the Duct Tape Instead, Foley took a honky tonk-style
Messiah, the drunken cowboy poet, w of poverty. He remained homeless
the holy fool who blew every chance he m 1977 to 1989, a few months before
got. One night in summer 1977 he was died. On the regretful, hangover-evok-
driving in a borrowed car through down- g Clay Pigeons, Foley promises to
town Austin when he passed a bar called hange the shape that I’m in, and get back
The Hole In The Wall, where the sign out- the game and start playin’ again,” but he
side announced a band called The Goats Of ely did. A running joke in Austin at the
Photo courtesy Margery Bouris, Marsha Weldon/blazefoleymovie.com

Arabia. Intrigued, Foley went in. me was that the BFI logo stencilled onto
“He was this long-haired hippy cowboy e city’s dumpsters stood for ‘Blaze Foley
with a big old moustache. He walked with a On quite a few nights, he actually was.
limp because he had polio, so he had a bend to him,” says “He spent a lot of time on my couch, and I loved him
Gurf Morlix, one half of The Goats Of Arabia and now an ut he could be a ton of bricks,” says Morlix. “One
accomplished songwriter who in 2011 released an ac- ime this guy pulled a gun on us, and I said, Come on,
claimed album of Foley’s songs, Blaze Foley’s 113th Wet et’s get out of here. Blaze said to the guy, ‘What are
Dream. “I wasn’t sure what to think. He wanted to sell me ou gonna do, shoot me? Go on. I dare you.’”
this guitar he had in a case, and he tried to come up and Then there was the time Foley and Morlix were
show it to me between songs. I liked him. He was smart riving from Houston to Austin in a thunderstorm and
and funny and the guitar wasn’t his. He had already sold it ne of the tyres blew out. “I pulled the car to the side
to several people, none of who ever got it.” f the road, put the flashers on, and leaned to the back
Foley managed to put down If I Could Only Fly on a 45 eat to get a book. I was going to wait until the storm
in 1979, thanks to three Houston oil traders who formed a record passed to change the tyre, but Blaze had all this nervous energy
label, Zephyr, as a tax break. “Blaze treated these guys who took a because he needed a drink real bad. He sat there fidgeting for ➢

MOJO 53
 Putting rage into music: Foley
explores his darkness, ’81; (right,
from top) Blaze (left), with song-
writing buddies Ricky Cardwell
and Townes Van Zandt (far right);
Foley parks it; flyer for Foley’s
showcase at Soap Creek, a pre-
mier songwriter venue in Austin;
Ben Dickey (left), who plays Foley
in the movie Blaze, with director
Ethan Hawke.

“Along comes Townes Van Zandt, saying,

Life is not worth living.’”
➣
five minutes before he said, ‘God darn it, give me the keys.’ He The album was pressed up, but before it was released the drug
took off all his clothes and changed the wheel in a thunderstorm, dealer was busted and the FBI confiscated everything in his storage
naked. That’s dedication.” unit, including almost all of the copies. “Blaze got about a hundred,
Unfortunately, it was dedication to the wrong muse. “The real which he would trade for drinks in bars,” says Morlix. It was the
change came after he met Townes Van Zandt,” says Morlix. “When first of a series of unfortunate incidents in Foley’s recording career.
I met Blaze we would drink each night but wake up sober and start The master tapes of a second album were stolen from a station
working on a song in the morning, because he was dedicated to wagon. The tapes to a third, Wanted More Dead Than Alive, also went
those songs. I’m always struck by how honest his lines are: no guile, missing, only for a friend to find them in his car after Foley’s death.
no pretence. Then the dedication shifted toward alcohol and having The album was finally released in 2005.
a good time. Everyone who met Townes wanted to be like Townes,
but he was a professional drinker. That’s when the binge drinking T’S THE MUSIC THAT MAKES FOLEY’S TALE WORTH
started, going for four days straight on biker speed.” telling, and Hawke has been true to it, going as far as to give the
Courtesy Dana Kolfat, blazfoleymovie.com

Morlix tired of the scene and moved out to Los Angeles to be- principal roles in his movie to musicians rather than actors. Kris
come Lucinda Williams’ guitarist (and boyfriend). Then in 1984 he Kristofferson plays Foley’s ailing father (“If you want to make a film
got a call from Foley to fly out to Alabama and record an album with about the Austin outlaw country scene, you need Kris Kristoffer-
him at Muscle Shoals studio. What seemed like a sign of an unruly son,” says Hawke. “He’s a card-carrying legend”). And Charlie
talent getting his act together proved to be anything but. Sexton, the former teenage blues prodigy from Austin who was 16
“It was manic,” says Foley. “He had these friends of his pick me when he landed a major label deal, proved a prescient choice to play
up from Atlanta airport, and they were so whacked out on cocaine Townes Van Zandt.
that they thought the Ku Klux Klan and the FBI were chasing them. “Townes was a family friend,” says Sexton, taking a rare break
The guy paying for the recording was a wealthy drug dealer.” from his day job as guitarist in Bob Dylan’s band. “He believed you

54 MOJO
 Falstaff, Townes Van Zandt was a Texas Shakespeare. Blaze was a
Southern farm boy who sang at church and was beaten by his father.
Townes came from a good family. People wanted him to be a doctor
or a lawyer, but he made an intellectual decision to lead this life. He
was far more complex and mysterious than Blaze.”
Alynda Segarra, who formed Hurray For The Riff Raff in New
Orleans in 2010 after crossing the US by hopping freight trains,
says of Foley: “I was feeling bullied by America when I first heard
him, and he became the ideal of who I wanted to find: a poetic,
masculine guy who stands up for poor people. You hear tales of how
messy Blaze and Townes Van Zandt’s lives were, but their songs are
so perfectly constructed. It’s like in their songs they found some
kind of inner peace.”
Outer peace was harder to come by. Toward the end of his life
Foley was achieving a modicum of success, and in 1988 publishing
royalties from Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson’s versions of If I
Could Only Fly allowed him to rent a room in a house in Austin’s
Travis Heights neighbourhood. “He was really proud of that room,”
remembers Gurf Morlix. “He was on the wagon and making all this
artwork, which I had never seen him do before. Then I flew back to
LA and a couple of weeks later I got The Call. It didn’t have to hap-
pen. But in a sense it did.”
Foley had befriended an elderly neighbour called Concho Janu-
ary who shared his chief interests: singing songs and getting drunk.
Noticing that January’s son JJ kept turning up on the first day of
every month to take his father’s welfare cheque, Foley appointed
himself defender of the old man. On the morning of February 1,
1989, JJ arrived with a rifle and, after an argument, shot Foley. He
died at Brackenridge hospital later that day.
“Blaze was defying death wherever he could,” says Morlix. “He
saw what happened to his father and didn’t want to end up the same
way. Years later I was thinking, Oh man, he probably dared the kid
to shoot him. He got shot in the side with a .22 rifle. That shouldn’t
kill you. If he had sat there waiting for an ambulance he probably
would have lived, but I heard from someone in the neighbourhood
that he chased after the guy and bled out. It would have been typical
Blaze behaviour.”

HAT DROVE FOLEY TO TREAT HIS LIFE SO

cavalierly? Ben Dickey, who plays the singer with such a
compelling blend of physical imposition and mental
fragility, has a theory. “Townes and Blaze thought they had to jump
off the edge and be crushed at the bottom of the canyon in order to
do anything of value,” he says. “I know that guy. I’ve had depression.
I know the spirit of who he is. Blaze had some tools, like his song-
writing, his honesty, and his ability to express a lot of ideas in a few
words, but he sharpened those tools only. In doing so he neglected
a lot of what it means to be a human being.”
had to blow everything else off to be a great songwriter, and al- In Foley and Van Zandt there also ran a rich vein of Southern
though I don’t come anywhere close to being as good as him I also bohemianism that Ethan Hawke felt was worth celebrating, perhaps
Photo courtesy of Roger Dukes, courtesy of IFC Films, photo by [email protected]

don’t subscribe to that theory. If you have struggles you just use especially now. “I wanted to reclaim the flag of the Texas I grew up
them. And for Blaze, as I was for many people in Austin around that in,” says Hawke. “Going to see Willie Nelson in concert as a kid,
time, I was the antithesis of everything he believed in. I was the kid working with Richard Linklater in the early ’90s, I felt strong waves
with the major label deal and he was the guy who kept shooting of Southern bohemian life, and Blaze and Townes’s songs were key
himself in the foot. I remember him looking at me with this funny to understanding that. These people were not hillbillies shooting
expression, as if to say, ‘I know I’m supposed to like you…’” beer cans in the backyard. Townes is the unassailable poet laureate
“The movie is about two love affairs,” says Hawke. “The first has of the Southwest. Blaze put all his rage into music. They typified the
kind of radical thinking you find throughout the South.”
Blaze and Sybil in the treehouse, with nature manifesting itself in
Gurf Morlix told Hawke that Blaze is the best movie about music
humanity. Then along comes Townes, saying, ‘You know what? Fuck
ever made, adding: “Of course, that’s a very low vault.” Ultimately,
everything. Fuck family, fuck friends, fuck work, fuck responsibility.
the film is about an artist who couldn’t navigate the world he was in.
Life is not worth living, so all we can do is try to make sense of it
“Blaze had ideas about being a legend,” Sybil Rosen concludes.
through our music.’ Do we have to hate ourselves and live in pain to
“He behaved outrageously, he rebelled against commerce taking
create anything of value? It’s not something I believe. But these
over art, and he created this persona of someone who wasn’t going
were people who couldn’t figure out how to integrate art into their
to participate. But he certainly wanted his voice out there. How do
lives and find balance.”
you do that when you don’t want to be out there with it?”
While Townes Van Zandt was a rich kid searching for release in
Blaze did get his voice out there. Just not in his lifetime. M
life at the bottom, Foley never had any wealth to reject in the first
place. Van Zandt introduced Foley to Kamchatka vodka; Foley took Blaze is in cinemas late summer 2018; an Original Cast Recording, with Ben
Van Zandt to hobo camps. As Ethan Hawke puts it, “If Blaze was Dickey, Charlie Sexton and Alynda Segarra, is out on Light In The Attic in September.

MOJO 55
 ©PRN The Prince Estate/Larry Williams

Something in the air: Prince

And The Revolution on the
set for the When Doves
Cry video (from left) Mark
‘Brownmark’ Brown, Prince,
Bobby Z, Dr Fink, Lisa
Coleman, Wendy Melvoin.

56 MOJO
MOJO 57
 OKOHAMA STADIUM, JAPAN, was hurting inside, bad. I had so much I wanted
to talk to him about, and there was no closure.”
September 9, 1986. It’s the last night of Reuniting with his ex-bandmates offered some
Prince & The Revolution’s Parade tour, and kind of sanctuary. “We’re a family,” nods Lisa.
“We bicker, we laugh, we know how to be to-
the typically epic 30-song set is studded with gether, and we know how to go through stuff.”
the hits that secured Prince his hard-won The Revolution first reunited for three shows
at Minneapolis’s legendary First Avenue club, one
crossover success, alongside the deep cuts and of Prince’s regular haunts, in September 2016,
concert jams that nurtured his dedicated cult fol- five months after his death. “Those first few
shows were rough, emotional,” says Brown. “But
lowing. The setlist serves as a celebration of Prince’s then it started to become a celebration.
polyamorous genius: funk, soul, Like, this is the cure. Prince wouldn’t want
us to be hurting, he’d want us to be on-
rock’n’roll and the sweetest pop all in stage, having a great time with the people.”
the palm of his lace-gloved hand. It is “You have to understand, we were
also a tribute to the skills of The Rev- friends for 40 years,” says Rivkin. The first
Revolution member to enter Prince’s life, in
olution, the band who have helped 1976 a 20-year-old Rivkin met Prince, then
him establish a place alongside just 18, at Moonsound, a Minneapolis re-
cording studio whose founder, Chris Moon,
Michael Jackson, Madonna and Bruce recognised Prince’s prodigious talents and
Springsteen in the pantheon of was helping him record a demo tape. “I was
rehearsing with my band when I heard
’80s megastardom. Prince recording,” remembers Rivkin. “I was
nstantly taken with his music. I walked in and
The show closes with Prince’s signature anthem, said Hi, and he turned round like Dracula.
Purple Rain. Two minutes into the song’s soaring, (Laughs) I won him over with some jokes.”
elegiac guitar solo, Prince holds aloft his axe – the Rivkin later scored a job as a runner for local
same white, scroll-horned ‘cloud guitar’ onscreen advertising exec and promoter Owen Husney,
paramour Appolonia bought him in the movie of the who had just signed on as Prince’s manager. “So
same name – and smashes it into the stage. He stalks to I became Prince’s driver,” says Rivkin. “We
the wings, collects a spare and picks up the solo again, became close. I was suburban, middle-class.
only to smash that one too, after 30 more seconds of He came from very humble beginnings,
ecstatic wailing. Minneapolis’s equivalent to Harlem. Me,
The symbolism is not lost on the members of The Revo- him and Andre [Cymone, Prince’s then
lution. “It was the most intense thing I ever saw him do closest friend], we’d go to restaurants up-
on-stage,” says drummer Bobby ‘Z’ Rivkin. town, but they’d be nervous, they wouldn’t
“I looked at Lisa [Coleman, pianist],” says guitarist want to talk to the maitre d’, because they
Wendy Melvoin, “and I looked at Bobby, and he looked at were black. There was a racism thing there I
me and said, ‘That’s it. It’s over.’” hadn’t picked up on; the world as I knew it
Upon returning to the US, Prince makes it official, call- and took for granted, he didn’t feel it was
ing time on the group that has helped him create his great- open to him.”
est works, challenging him and changing him as surely as In those early days Prince was a lone-
they’d served at his whim, witnessing his transformation into the wolf, and he played every instrument and sang every note on his
superstar he’d always planned to become. first two albums after signing to Warner Bros, 1978’s For You and
“It was like hanging onto the tail of a comet,” says Wendy. “It 1979’s Prince. But he knew he needed backing musicians to play
was fantastic, and exhausting, and superhuman, and masochistic, live. He invited Rivkin and Cymone aboard as his rhythm section,
and no one could keep up with him.” and auditioned for further members.
“He wanted to be the king of the world,” says Lisa. “Everyone had “The auditions were one long jam that went on for hours,” re-
to get out of his way. And we burned the path for him to walk on.” members Rivkin. “Prince was a time-vampire, and I was sucked
into his vortex back then, my life was gone. He wouldn’t communi-
HEN HE FORMED THE REVOLUTION IN 1984, cate with anyone, so I was holding it together. Gayle [Chapman,
Prince Rogers Nelson was looking for more than just back- keyboardist] we knew through Andre. Dez [Dickerson, guitarist]
ing musicians: he wanted an actual, proper band. And in a played in local band Revolver; he was a rocker, he looked great. But
©PRN The Prince Estate/Nancy Bundt

few hours, that band will close Wichita’s nine-day Riverfest with a Prince wanted a second synthesizer player. Jimmy Jam auditioned.
two-hour set not far removed from the one they played in Yokohama Yanni [later the multiplatinum superstar of New Age music] audi-
over three decades ago. Right now, however, they are congregated tioned. Everybody auditioned.”
in MOJO’s hotel room. The vibe, fittingly, is that of a school reun- The winning candidate, Matt ‘Dr’ Fink, had been friends with
ion: reminiscences, laughter, tears and a lot of love. Rivkin since childhood. “Bobby played me Prince’s demo, and it
These reunion concerts are, they say, therapeutic, both for them blew my mind,” Fink remembers. “This was all just one guy? And he
and for the Prince devotees who flock to see them. “When Prince was my age, 19? I walked in and saw all the synthesizers Prince had
died, I cried for weeks,” says bassist Mark ‘Brownmark’ Brown. “I bought with Warners’ money. I couldn’t wait to play with his toys.” ➢

58 MOJO
The beautiful ones: dressed
up for rehearsals for the
Purple Rain tour, 1984 (from
left) Bobby Z, Lisa, Dr Fink,
Wendy, Prince, Brownmark.
 Let’s go crazy!: Prince takes
Purple Rain to the stage
(clockwise from left) Wembley,
August 14, 1986; Fabulous
Forum, Inglewood, CA,
February 19, ’85; the tour in
’85; London club gig after
Wembley, ’86; ‘escaping’ from
the media, July 2, 1986; (below)
Controversy and pivotal 1999.

Y LATE 1979, PRINCE AND HIS band route to her wedding, with Lisa murmuring “I’m just
were playing their first club showcases a virgin” and calling him “a hunk, so full of spunk”.
and, in early 1980, joined Rick James as The album saw also Prince ditch his long-haired soul
the opening act for his 38-date Fire It Up tour, heart-throb look for a jarring new look: trenchcoat
Prince spending every night trying to upstage the and bikini briefs. “He was inspired by Adam & The
veteran funkateer. Ants, the New Romantic scene,” says Rivkin. “It
“Rick tried to befriend Prince, but back then didn’t really translate to LA and the urban scene at the
Prince was very anti-drugs, anti-alcohol,” says time.”
Fink. “And Rick was coming on every night, drink- Cymone exited next, replaced by Mark Brown,
ing Courvoisier and smoking pot… It turned 19-year-old bassist with local funk group Phantasy.
Prince off.” “He said, ‘Learn all three albums, Bobby Z will
The tour was a success, but there was unrest within pick you up from your job tomorrow,’” says
the ranks. “Andre and Dez saw the band as a temporary Brown. “We had a 15-minute jam session, and he
thing, they made no bones about it,” says Rivkin. “Their told me they were gonna be playing with The Roll-
focus was their solo careers.” ing Stones, and that his next album, Controversy,
Chapman was the first to go, supposedly offended by could open up all these new avenues to him. He
the racier content of Prince’s new songs. Her replace- also said if Controversy failed he’d get dropped
ment was Lisa Coleman, whose father had been a mem- from the label and it would all be over. And I just
ber of legendary session musos the Wrecking Crew, and looked at him like, ‘The stuff you just played me?
who was teaching piano in LA when the invitation to audition That’s your ‘crossover’, right here.’ But he had these doubts and
Getty (2), ©PRN The Prince Estate/Nancy Bundt

arrived. “He picked me up at Minneapolis airport,” remembers insecurities.” Brown grins. “He was human, y’know?”
Coleman. “We were both so quiet, so shy, it almost didn’t work out.
He got a bad vibe off me, thought I was a big hippy girl. But then I ROWN’S FIRST SHOW WITH PRINCE WAS OPENING
started playing piano, and he grabbed his guitar and joined me.” for The Rolling Stones on October 9, at Los Angeles’
“Lisa’s a very unorthodox musician,” says Brown. “I’ve never 75,000 capacity Memorial Coliseum. “Three songs in,
heard anyone voice piano like her. That’s what Prince loved about Prince turns to us and says, ‘We’re gonna do Jack U Off.’ Prince, no!
her. And if he felt he could learn from you, he wanted you.” You’re standing there in a trench-coat and panties. They’ll think the
Coleman joined the group in time to tour Prince’s third album, song’s about you wanting to jack guys off! And it was a disaster. The
Dirty Mind, a tour de force of brash new wave funk and filthy lyrics crowd were already rowdy, but they turned into Mount Vesuvius.
– especially Head, the steamy tale of Prince seducing a bride en BAM! I got hit by bags of chicken, some grapefruit, dodged a couple

60 MOJO
Jack Daniel’s bottles. It was like Animal House.” A second, final
show with the Stones was similarly calamitous. “But I was from the
chitlin circuit” says Brown. “I was used to dodging bullets.”
A month later, Brown got his first true taste of the Prince phe-
nomenon when the group played Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theatre. “I
was blown away. Prince was the coolest rock star I’ve ever seen,
bouncing his leg along to the beat, looking like a gladiator. There’s
7,000 people there, they’re all black, and they’re screaming so loud
I couldn’t hear my own voice. I was like a deer in headlights, man.
Women were passing out…”
Brown was abruptly familiarised with Prince’s fierce work ethic,
and his expectation that his musicians would rehearse for hours
every day.
“Jam sessions lasted 10 hours,” says Brown. “It was ridiculous.
But Prince was like this mad scientist, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
Sometimes he’d be in this playful mood, and Prince was a really
funny guy. But when he was in serious mode, he was a drill sergeant.
We became like machines – that’s how he groomed us to be.”
Dickerson chafed at the constant rehearsals and epic pre-
concert soundchecks, along with the risqué bent of Prince’s new
lyrics. “One day, Dez didn’t want to go to soundcheck,” remembers
Rivkin. “And that was a fateful day for him. Prince was someone
who drew lines in the sand.”
Instead, Prince invited Lisa’s girlfriend, Wendy Melvoin, to play
guitar at the soundcheck. Melvoin, also the daughter of a crack
A lover not a fighter: Prince
Wrecking Crew sessioneer, was a fan of Prince’s long before at the Joe Louis Arena,
Coleman joined his group. “I couldn’t believe it,” remembers Detroit, November 8, 1984;
putting on his Vault face for
Melvoin. “Prince hired Lisa Coleman to be in his band? This hippy the first rarities album.
girl classical musician who’d studied Hindemith? And then I heard
Head. I was so excited for her. And so envious.”
At that fateful soundcheck, Prince called Melvoin on-stage and
told her to play. “I was an accomplished player, I could play in a
bunch of different styles,” says Melvoin. “But I didn’t know what to
play. I was totally influenced by Joni Mitchell and open-tunings, so
I thought of Joni, who I knew Prince loved, and played this big, fat
progression. And his eyes were like pinwheels.”
“He ran out, really excited, and then called me the next day, to ask
if I’d mind if he asked Wendy to join,” laughs Coleman. “That was
big for him. He knew that she was my girlfriend, and that I was
THE FIRST posthumous release from faithful to the time periods of
currently the only girl in the band, so it was asking me to give up a lot, Prince’s Brobdingnagian store of Prince’s creative evolution” and
to share a lot of myself. But actually, it was like a dream come true.” unreleased studio and live material to avoid embellishment and
With Melvoin’s arrival, The Revolution’s line-up was now com- arrives on September 21. Fans will editorialising. Remastered versions
already have experienced the super- of the classic albums are also in the
plete, fulfilling Prince’s dream of a band that was multiracial, multi- intimate solo gospel workout, Mary cards. Meanwhile, the debut archive
gender. In Brown’s words, “like a salt’n’pepper Fleetwood Mac”. Don’t You Weep – first streamed on package exposes an under-
“He saw each of us as like a band in our own right,” says Cole- what would have been Prince’s 60th acknowledged side of Prince.
birthday, June 7. But Piano & A “During that time, ’82-85, I think
man. “Like, Mark was the funk band, Matt was the synth band, Microphone 1983 harbours many that he was a master pop piano
Wendy’s the funky Joni Mitchell, I’m the ‘girl’ thing… It was like more revelations, including early player, and a master gospel piano
he was in the studio with all his influences, and whether it was a girly sketches of Purple Rain,International player,” says Revolution keyboardist
Lover and Strange Relationship, all
song, a ballad, or some hot, funky, rock thing, he could deliver.” recorded in one uninterrupted
Lisa Coleman, “and when those two
worked together in tandem, he
The Revolution were the perfect foils for Prince’s next giant session on a bog-standard audio came up with amazing songs. And
step, one that would pool that polymorphous parade of influences, cassette in Prince’s Kiowa Trail the kind of progressions he came
spinning them into a chart-dominating monster fashioned in his home studio in Chanhassen. It’s a up with, which delivered songs like
compelling peek behind the curtain, [Parade album track] Anotherlover-
own idiosyncratic image. But Purple Rain was a phenomenon that but an unexpected start to the Vault holenyohead. Those big chords –
couldn’t just be contained on two sides of vinyl – Prince now had mining, given the mountain of they’re untouchable.”
plans to conquer the silver screen, too. ‘posher’ available recordings. In 1983, Prince was poised
“The cassette is not the standard between the success of 1999 and
format for audio mastering,” rocket-launch of Purple Rain. Even
VEN AFTER HE’D ASSEMBLED HIS EARLIER concedes the Prince Archive’s in cartoon form, the ‘new’ album
back-ing group, Prince’s albums were mainly solo affairs, Michael Howe. “But the performance shows the range of options that
is so riveting, so committed. It felt were at his fingertips: the aching
only calling upon his bandmates for the occasional guitar like something people had to hear.” soul vocal and driving jazz
solo or backing vocal. That method reached its apogee on 1983’s Howe, an experienced A&R exec breakdowns of 17 Days; the
oustanding double album, 1999, with three Top 12 US singles – who worked with Prince during his Broadway-tinged pop of Wednes-
Little Red Corvette, 1999 and Delirious. Purple Rain would upend final stint on Warners, admits that day – intended for protégée Jill
option paralysis could easily have Jones but destined to be cut from
the paradigm. “It was a really different energy to any other album hindered their release campaign. Purple Rain. The sheer quality bodes
he’d done before,” remembers Rivkin. “Because he involved us, Prince’s Vault contains entire nearly- well for whatever’s next from
brought us into the room and we all worked on it together.” released albums from the mid-’80s Vaultworld. There’s certainly no
– Camille, Dream Factory, various shortage of material.
“Purple Rain was like a sculpted piece of work that he was honing iterations of Crystal Ball – as well as “I think he had a tape machine in
to perfection,” nods Fink. “Everybody was adding parts and stuff to hundreds of full-band live his bed,” says the Revolution’s Mark
the music. It was an ensemble piece.” ➢ recordings and solo sessions similar Brown, still incredulous. “I think he
in spirit to Piano & A Microphone. went to bed with his clothes on!”
Howe is keen that Vault releases are Danny Eccleston
 ➣
Mark Brown had recognised Prince’s yearning for crossover TARDOM, THEY SAY, MOSTLY CAME EASY TO
success, shortly after joining the group. “He played me Let’s Work Prince. “Even before he was famous, he was a rock star in
[off Controversy], and said, ‘This one’s for the brothers and sisters’, his own head,” says Rivkin. “I think he was just destined
like the rest of the album was aimed at a bigger audience. His vision for that.”
was way ahead of mine.” “He was born ‘Prince’, and that just became more refined, over
Now Purple Rain made that ambition for crossover success time,” nods Melvoin. “He was self-conscious and an exhibitionist
explicit, Prince unwilling to be contained within just at the same time. He walked into a room, and he
funk or soul. could feel every eye on him, and he worked it
“That was the direction it was always meant to go: better than anyone else.”
this was going to be his big pop/rock crossover,” says “He walked around like, ‘I’m the oddball, I
Melvoin. “And every one of these songs was going to ain’t got no money, I’m not like the other guys,’”
go to Number 1, I could just feel it.” grins Coleman. “‘But if you just turn your head
The movie, meanwhile, premiered a month after the and look at me, I’m gonna rock your world!’ He
album’s June 1984 release. “He just announced one day, seemed timid, but he had this confidence…”
‘We’re making a movie!’” remembers Rivkin. “It was the The Purple Rain tour sold over 1.7 million
most ambitious thing he’d ever done. And he was so tickets, and was going so well that The Revolution
impatient, and the process was so slow.” were shocked when, a fortnight before the tour’s
Though its live set-pieces – filmed at the First end in April 1985, Prince gathered them back-
Avenue club in Minneapolis – remain electrifying, stage to announce they were going on hiatus.
the rest of the Purple Rain movie has aged less well. “He said, ‘We’re gonna take about two years off,’”
Its melodramatic plot plays like a pulpy, B-movie remembers Fink. “Why? ‘It’s my decision, I’m done.’
retelling of the Prince story, as The Kid – a fear- He couldn’t give me a clear answer.”
somely talented, emotionally tortured funk-rock “In hindsight, it was fatigue talking,” says Rivkin. As
star-in-waiting – struggles with his warring parents, the workload increased, the group were increasingly
local rivals (and real life protégés) Morris Day & encountering the mercurial, wilful side of Prince’s na-
The Time (scenes influenced, says Rivkin, by ture. “My sister [Susannah Melvoin, singer with Prince
Prince’s love of the Mods vs Rockers scenes in side-project The Family, Prince’s lover during the
mid-’80s and inspiration for Nothing Compares 2 U]
Quadrophenia), his complex relationship with
called him ‘the creature’,” says Melvoin. “The only
beautiful singer Appolonia, and tensions way he could communicate with peo-
with his bandmates. ple was by playing an instrument, or
“It’s a horrible movie,” says Mel- by being with other musicians and
voin, as the rest of the band concur, communicating with music. Frankly,
noisily. “The music scenes are incred- outside of that it was difficult.”
ible – it’s an exciting battle-of-the- The two-year-hiatus plan lasted
bands movie. The family dynamic, only a couple of days, but mooted Eu-
that’s kind of interesting. But the other ropean and Australia/Japan legs of the
stuff? All the misogyny? The way the Purple Rain tour were nixed. “He was
guys treat the women? Awful.” bored of Purple Rain the day after the
“I knew the album would be our tour began,” says Rivkin. “He wanted
pinnacle, but the movie?” laughs to get on to the next thing.” The next
Brown. “I thought it was gonna flop.” thing was the diverse and psychedelic
The movie, however, did not flop, Around The World In A Day, which hit
making back 10 times its $7.2million shelves in April 1985, barely 10
budget, buoying the success of the al- months after Purple Rain. Another
bum and attendant 98-date US tour. The Purple Rain group effort, the album even features the Revolu-
tour was Prince’s biggest and most elaborate yet, tion’s siblings.
Mark Brown choreographing dance moves for each “We were always trying to turn Prince on to
member – even drummer Rivkin – and stepping up music he’d not heard,” says Melvoin. “One day,
his on-stage competition with Prince. Lisa and I took him out to the car and played him
“Through my time with him, I’d witnessed the this track our brothers [Jonathan Melvoin and
evolution of Prince,” says Brown. “He used to stand David Coleman] had done, with all these Arabic
with his back to the audience. Then I joined the band, instruments, this psychedelic melody. And I could
and I’m a dancer. Next thing I knew, he was like, tell Prince had found himself a new direction.”
‘I’mma wear you out tonight!’ and we were trying “He wanted to get as far away from Purple Rain
to outdo each other, leaping off the speaker as he could,” agrees Rivkin. “He wanted to
stacks. He was a frickin’ tiger, a roaring lion on- experiment with instruments he couldn’t play, with
stage. You couldn’t stop him.” new ideas.”
The tour’s six-night stopover at California’s “Up to that point in his life, he’d been driven by
The Forum in February 1985 involved guest ap- this need to prove he was the baddest ass,” says Mel-
pearances from Bruce Springsteen, who duelled voin. “So he’s playing all the instruments himself,
Prince on guitar, and Madonna, who flirted with drums, guitar, singing… Then, after Purple Rain, it’s
him, while the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson ike he knew he was no longer in competition with
himself, was in the audience for the Washington himself, or anyone else. And so he could open himself
DC and Detroit dates. up, he was comfortable with allowing all these new
“Prince was like the Muhammad Ali of deas and new people to come in.”
rock’n’roll,” says Fink. “He was very competitive. He knew Michael “But then he did Condition Of The Heart, all by himself,” mar-
was watching, and he walked off stage in Detroit and yelled, ‘We got vels Rivkin, referencing Around The World…’s billowing, gospel-
’im!’ Ever ybody came to see him, and he relished kicking strength ballad. “And it was brilliant.”
everyone’s ass.” Ambitious, courageous and quixotic, the new album challenged

62 MOJO
 Baby I’m a star: in Los
Angeles, 1984; (insets
opposite) mould-breakers
Around The World In A Day
(’85), Purple Rain (’84),
Parade (’86) and Sign ‘O’
The Times (’87).

critics and struggled to match Purple Rain’s sales, but Prince scarcely gave us full freedom. We’d jam, and he’d be running around, scream-
cared. “He didn’t wanna repeat himself, or attempt to outdo old ing, ‘Record that! Run the tape!’ Then he’d take that junk home and
triumphs,” says Brown. “He wanted to reinvent.” But while Around have it all polished up next day. Like, Wow, dude – do you sleep?”
The World… captured another peak in Prince’s creative relationship Some of Parade’s strongest moments were collaborative, like the
with his band, cracks were appearing within the unit. Brown had psych-rock shudder of Mountains or the moving elegy Sometimes It
fallen out with Prince over credit and money, and Prince’s pushing Snows In April, both penned with Wendy & Lisa, or Kiss, which Brown
him into the shadows on-stage. reshaped with producer David Z (Rivkin’s brother) from an acoustic
“I don’t know why he was treating me like that. Jealousy? What rock’n’roll number into the minimalist pop-funk classic it became.
did he have to be jealous of?” Brown says. “But it was some kind In the run-up to a 32-date world tour booked for the summer of
of insecurity. I quit. He begged me to stay. So I said, You’re treating 1986, knowing they were on a creative hot-streak, Prince & The
me like a hired bass player? Then I want a contract. And that’s Revolution maintained their fierce work-rate, cutting a blizzard of
what I became.” tracks, some of which would appear on Prince’s follow-up to Parade,
“I told Mark he was making a mistake, that he should stay,” sighs while others would populate a series of unreleased, uncompleted
Rivkin. “But he didn’t listen… Then, I guess, the unravelling began.” ‘ghost’ albums – Roadhouse Garden, the triple LP Crystal Ball and
©PRN The Prince Estate/Larry Williams

The Revolution’s own Dream Factory – whose proposed tracklistings

ESPITE THESE DEEPENING FAULT-LINES, THE are still the matter of fevered conjecture among devotees. “We just
Revolution agree that their next album, Parade, was a high kept cranking out song after song,” remembers Melvoin. “I think
point. “That was the most meaningful era, his most signifi- we finished four albums’ worth of material during that time.”
cant songwriting,” says Melvoin. “He had a different command of But simmering tensions between Wendy & Lisa and Prince
himself. He was turning into more of a man.” reached a head before the tour set off for Europe. “We wanted to be
“It was the most musical album we’d done,” says Brown. “The able to work with Prince forever; we just wanted to draw up some
Revolution was at its peak, and there was nothing holding us back, he contracts,” remembers Melvoin. “And he took it as an assault on ➢

MOJO 63
 to your music that you and I are so exactly alike.” a weird threat aimed at recently departed amour,
Despite the lèse-majesté, Miles deigned to add Susannah Melvoin.
Prince goes Donna Summer in this Moroder-
horn, only for Prince to block its release for the
esque techno-disco moan from 1980, named for
next 30-odd years. Free it now!
recently recruited keyboardist Lisa Coleman (not
the last time he’d name a song after her). Weirdly Bananas 1984 instrumental that’s nothing like the
great, though you can see why it didn’t make Dirty song on Around The World In A Day. Built on a nutty
Relentless 10-minute uptempo 1982 funker with Yamaha DX-7 squiggle, it could be a Frank Zappa
Mind. “Tell your man, he’ll understand / Lisa let’s
extraordinary, hyperactive synth bass line and piss-take of synth pop or a Mark Mothersbaugh
go.” We bet he won’t.
built-in manifesto: “Don’t need no reefer, don’t TV theme, with found sound of kids in a swing
need cocaine/Purple music does the same to my park thrown in for good measure.
brain.” Revisited, in stunning solo jazz piano style,
Spooky cloud-chords float above Prince’s
on Prince’s 2016 Piano & A Microphone tour, but
mythologising ballad-of-the-band lyric and a
renamed Welcome 2 The Freedom Galaxy.
growly cousin of the Sign ‘O’ The Times bass riff. Pure dance stance, with plentiful allusions to
Bonkers scatting adds to the pile-up of strange- “a new boogie crew”, once so highly rated by
ness. Possibly intended for nixed 1986 musical Prince that it looked likely to open the Camille and
Mark Brown’s vote for an early Vault release, this
The Dawn; if there’s ever a Prince: The Art Rock Crystal Ball albums which were ultimately thrown
epic (22-minute) 1984 jam features cheeky
Album, this should be the lead-off track. over in favour of Sign ‘O’ The Times. A terrific 1988
jazz-style guitar runs (by Prince, or Wendy?) plus
excursions into Ice Cream Castles, Erotic City and rehearsal version was released as part of a NPG
Sly Stone’s Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey, then Music Club download in 2001.
Irresistibly syncopated, Parliament-indebted another ace guitar solo, this time à la Jimi. Fugue
lope, arguably a cousin of Lovesexy’s Eye No, pays state funk-rock thrills a go-go.
tribute to said pulchritudinous Elektra, “with a Another ensemble jam, a 19-minute blow from
movie star attitude” and Jean Harlow attributes. January 5, 1986, and in that it features Wendy &
Recorded in May 1985 at Hollywood’s Sunset Wendy Melvoin remembers this minimal ’86 Lisa, plus Sheila E on percussion and Levi Seacer Jr
Sound with protégée Jill Jones on backing vocals. electro-funk-popper, stacked with daring on bass, constitutes a transitional phase between
counter-melodic backing vocals, as a doozy: “It’s Revolution and New Power Generation bands.
an amazing pop song, it’s got a great hook, he’s Prince is on totally badass drums, but the real
In January ’86, Prince sent this track to Miles Davis singing his ass off.” The lyric – “I’m gonna build star is actually saxophonist (and tour manager)
with a note that said, “I can tell just from listening a big tall wall, stone circle so you can’t get out” – is Eric Leeds.

64 MOJO
 The Revolution now:
(from left) Mark Brown,
Matt ‘Dr’ Fink, ex-
Mint Condition singer
Stokley Williams, Wendy
Melvoin (front), Bobby
‘Z’ Rivkin. Lisa Coleman.

➣
him. He wigged out. He thought it watch him continue without us,
meant we didn’t love him.” from afar? Sometimes. In all honesty,
The tour got underway, though the for sure. It was like seeing your ex-
vibe was different from Purple Rain, as partner, and she’s moved on, and
was the band, which had expanded to she’s got a baby.”
take on members of the recently defunct In the years following the break-
Family, plus a horn section, a group of up, Prince mended his relationship
dancing backing-vocalists called The with the members of The Revolu-
Bodyguards (including former The tion, who went on to successful sub-
Time member Jerome Benton), and sequent careers on either side of the
Susannah Melvoin on backing vocals. mixing desk. “He really was a big fan
“Musically, it was magical,” remembers of ours,” smiles Rivkin. “He’d intro-
Wendy. “We were playing better than duce us to people at his parties, like
ever, going to places we’d never visit- we were big stars. He used to call us
ed… But there was also stuff going on his Mount Rushmore.”
with people’s relationships. It got ugly. Prince and his former bandmates
By the time we got to Japan, I told Lisa, would talk about possibly playing to-
‘He’s gonna fire us. I can feel it.’ Some- gether again. That it never happened
thing was wrong.” haunts them now. “We were always talking, like, ‘Maybe we’ll do
“On the bullet train in Japan, Jerome told me, ‘Sheila E [Prince this,’ ‘Maybe we’ll do that,’” Coleman says, ruefully. “He never said,
protégé and support act for the Parade tour] wants your job,’” ‘Maybe I’ll die tomorrow and none of this will happen.’”
remembers Rivkin. “I knew it was over.” “I had inklings he had problems with his hips, pain stuff,” says
Fink, of the circumstances surrounding Prince’s death. “A few peo-
IX MONTHS AFTER THE REVOLUTION’S DEMISE, ple around him related he was on painkillers. But this was long be-
Prince’s ninth album, the acclaimed Sign ‘O’ The Times, fore the incident.”
was released, much of its four sides of vinyl composed of “Prince buying street drugs off the internet?” asks Rivkin, in-
songs Prince recorded in the months before the fateful Parade tour. credulously. “Does not compute. But he had tough moments in his
©PRN The Prince Estate/Nancy Bundt, Photo by Robert Georgeff

“Lisa and I had worked hard on that record,” remembers Mel- life, physically and emotionally. It’s hard to judge someone… He
voin. “We were like, Oh God, let’s just open it and see [if we got had a vulnerability.”
credited]. And it just said, in the linernotes, ‘Thanks Wendy & Lisa.’ As to their future as a group, The Revolution are uncertain, be-
It was heartbreaking.” yond the concerts already booked. “How long is the grieving process
“That whole period was like a romantic break-up,” adds Cole- supposed to last?” asks Melvoin. Right now, they just know it feels
man. “I felt brokenhearted for a while. It was like a divorce.” good to be together while they make sense of the loss, and the shock.
“I had pleaded with Prince not to break the group up,” adds “We’re not doing this because he died,” says Coleman. “We’re do-
Fink, who was the sole Revolution member to escape Prince’s axe, ing it because he was so alive. He was young! He shouldn’t have died!”
continuing to play with him until 1991. “I felt very ambivalent “Prince knew his songs would outlive him, anyway,” says Mel-
about staying – it was hard.” voin, finally. “It’s awful to do it without him [Prince], but somehow
“It was a fiercely busy time,” continues Melvoin. “I wish it we’re doing it for each other. Let’s play these songs while we’re alive
could’ve gone on longer. But he was like a hummingbird, going and can do this.” M
from one flower to the next, trying to get as much nectar as he
could, and we were just a flower he was done with. Was it hard, to The Revolution play O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire February 13 and 14, 2019.

MOJO 65
 MOJO EYEWITNESS

NICO’S
LAST
DECADE
In 1981, former Fellini muse, Warhol superstar
and Velvet Underground voice NICO was washed up and
addicted in Manchester. Singing sombre lullabies for the
dead, she clawed her way out of the dark until tragedy
struck one last time. Thirty years on from her death,
friends and collaborators remember her again.
“Whatever the context, she was Alpha Female,”
they say, “but something massive
was being suppressed.”

Portrait by GIE KNAEPS

David J. Haskins: “In May ‘81 we were recording

at Playground Studio in London, when Nico hit
the buzzer and requested that she come in. She
was very charismatic and mysterious. I think she
was very tuned into parallel dimensions and
‘that which lies beyond the veil’ as it were. Later,
at a club in Manchester called Fagin’s [on
October 28, 1981], she asked if we’d be into
playing a song with her. We suggested Waiting
For The Man. We had no time to rehearse it. It was
a big kick for us and the crowd were amazed.”
Phil Jones: “Me and [manager/promoter] Alan La dolce vita: Nico
Wise saw Nico at Rafters in Manchester. performs at Jungle Of
Everybody had heard of her, but nobody knew Joy, Antwerp, Belgium,
what she did. And when she did it, everybody November 14, 1987.
Getty

went, ‘Bloody hell’. Her singing The End by The

Doors was unbelievable, high drama. Then ➢

MOJO 67
 “SHE MOVED AROUND IN
HER OWN MICROCLIMATE Drama in exile: Nico with Lutz Graf-
Ulbrich (left) and John Cale, at CBGB’s,

OF GLAMOUR.” New York, February 19, 1979; (above)

with Bauhaus, Fagin’s, Manchester,
October 28, 1981; (left) in 1985;
John Cooper-Clarke (inset below) manager Alan Wise.

➣
she did the flipping German national She seemed a little distressed, and was in the of America in 1982, that was a bit of a baptism of
anthem, Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles, bathroom for a long time. Then, in no time, she fire. Didn’t get paid, East Coast to West Coast and
alone at that harmonium… we thought, Fucking went from looking quite haggard to suddenly back again with no air conditioning, squabbling
hell, what’s she going to do next?” looking quite beautiful and dreamy. Then she all the way, vile motels with cockroaches, Nico
wanted to start making soup – which was withdrawing… it was just nuts. I was naïve
James Young: “The Rough Trade agency had got typical Nico. Whatever the context, she was enough to think I wasn’t naïve. What the fuck was
in touch with Alan, saying, ‘We’ve got an Alpha Female.” I doing, this college boy, wandering around the
interesting cult artist called Nico.’ Alan said, Tenderloin district of San Francisco trying to
‘Who’s he?’ They packed her off to Manchester Una Baines: “We had an experience going score heroin?”
and Alan took her under his wing, because she through customs after a tour of Holland. Nico
was in such a mess, she had no money, just her OD’d and they radio’d ahead and searched John Cooper-Clarke: “The world of hustlers and
Getty (9), Petra Gill/courtesy Lutz Ulbrich, courtesy Phil Jones, Roy Tee, David J Haskins, Trinity Mirror

harmonium and the clothes she stood up in and everybody, with dogs and everything. All me and hard narcotic addiction… its’s not the sort of
a raging habit. Alan was super-intelligent, a bit Martin [Bramah] had was a bit of grass in a pipe, club you can just walk in and out of, is it? In ’85 I’d
crazy, and very emotional – he said he intuitively which we threw in the sea before we got back! been in a drug clinic, and I’d moved into a place
felt a huge affection for Nico because she But they didn’t find anything, and when we got in Brixton. Nico had been evicted from her gaff in
seemed so forlorn.” through, we went to the nearest pub and Nico Manchester, so the upshot was, Can she move in
just said (adopts deep Germanic voice), ‘Did you with me for a while? John Cale was also staying
Una Baines: “The Blue Orchids came into Nico’s see how I hypnotised the dog?’ I thought, I can’t – two-fifths of The Velvet Underground under
orbit via Alan Wise. I was dead excited to work go through this, I’ve got a baby at home.” my roof, I was absolutely star-struck. Her and
with her because I’d been a massive fan since John, it was mainly business. As a housemate she
I was 16. We did some great gigs – we played James Young: “When I joined, it was like being was very tidy. No trouble at all. I remember she
Waiting For The Man and Femme Fatale, and I recruited by Alan, Oscar Wilde in one
used to ask her to do I’ll Be Your Mirror, but she Good Ship Nico. A ook. Luckily, she
wouldn’t. She was very disciplined, she always There were some
did a really professional performance, and it was England, to sustai
amazing how well she wrote in English on songs we went to Italy, ju dall: “In March ’85
like Janitor Of Lunacy. The clichés about her War was on. The p Camera Obscura in
aren’t fair, really. I think because she was a why she wasn’t bl s in London.
woman and she was so beautiful, the fact she on it, when I knew n Cale was actually
took heroin is the focus, and not her music.” renouncing every Nico, then. He was
[Warhol-associate o the end of his
James Young: “I was living in Oxford, and in Paul Morrissey sai of excess so he was
November ’81 Nico and The Blue Orchids were renunciation of ev easonable amounts
playing a discotheque called Scamps. There was all the glamorous ne, but drinking
a knock at the door and it was [old schoolmate] that she could bec menal amounts – he
Alan and this German lady. I vaguely put things That took guts. etting bottles of
together, though I wasn’t a slavish fan of hers. We did a six-w mpagne and crates

68 MOJO
 End games: Nico and
James Young at the Berlin
Planetarium, her final gig,
June 6, 1988; (below) at the
Brussels Centre For Fine Arts,
DRAMATIS March 24, 1988; (left, above)
PERSONAE the ice queen smiles; (left,
below) Nico considers a swift
half of darkness, 1985.

● David J.
Haskins, Bauhaus
bassist

● Phil Jones,
promoter

● James Young,
keyboardist

● Una Baines,
keyboardist, The
Blue Orchids

of Grolsch delivered. But he had this 1938, in Germany. There was raw Graham ‘Dids’ Dowdall: “It was a glorious
production genius, and it was feeling deep down inside, and the experience. She was on methadone by then and
incredibly exciting to work with him. songs actually became a channel for she was pretty healthy. She wanted to refocus, to
● John Cooper-
He and Nico were like old mates, and Clarke, poet her to express that.” do another bunch of original strong material
actually it was pretty focused. John from a new, clean perspective. We thought it
believed in her as an artist and he Graham ‘Dids’ Dowdall: “She was full
was the beginning of a really exciting new
wanted to make sure she got a good of contradictions. We all know horrible
stories about Nico, but I never saw that. period. We didn’t know it was going to be her
album under budget and in time. last gig. Six weeks later I got a call saying she
She was in a much better place I knew the Nico that would come to my
house and drink tea and be soft and had died in Ibiza.”
then. She’d say things like, ‘This is the
best I’ve felt since the ’60s.’ I think she friendly, not the ice queen at all.” Lutz ‘Lüül’ Graf-Ulbrich: “She had been riding
felt like it was an opportunity to get James Young: “At the end of 1986 I a bike in the middle of the day, when it was really
back into the game properly.” ● Graham ‘Dids’
left. There was frustration. Nico wasn’t hot, to buy some hash. This couple found her
Dowdall, lying on the ground, half paralysed. The first
John Cale (writing in What’s Welsh “developed-
doing anything new. If I’m really
honest, I left in the hope that she’d say, doctor they took her to rejected her, the second
For Zen, Bloomsbury, 1999): “She primitive”
musician/ ‘Don’t go, let’s work on new material.’ It was having a siesta. It took two hours to get her
had a lot of depth in her personality to hospital. She died in the early morning [of July
that she didn’t have before, better
percussionist had got to the point where it was just
going round and round revisiting the 18, 1988]. It was a cerebral haemorrhage. Her son
lyrics and sensibility. She wasn’t as Ari said she’d had a headache for three days
abrasive as she used to be.” same venues, playing the same music,
and that carried on. A year or so later, already. When I went to Ibiza and I read her diary,
John Cooper-Clarke: “I can’t she phoned me up and said, ‘Will you you could see that she really was tired of touring.
remember ever having any kind of come back?’” I think she wanted to stop and write a book.
searching conversation with her. She was 49, but it was more a miracle that she
There’s nothing I can relate that would Lutz ‘Lüül’ Graf-Ulbrich: “In 1988 survived so long. She outlived her colleagues
puncture her mythological status. She I arranged a show at the Berlin who died much earlier, because of drugs or
● John Cale, Planetarium: Fata Morgana – Desert
was the kind of artist that people producer whatever. She was so strong, and she’d had such
project a lot of themselves onto, very Sounds At The Planetarium. I knew a full and rich life.”
self-contained. Self-possessed. She Nico loved deserts, so she was our first Interviews by Ian Harrison
moved around in her own micro- option. I asked her what desert did she
climate of glamour.” want to write music for. She said Further Nico reading: James Young, Nico: Songs They
straight away, the Moon. It was a Never Play On The Radio (Arrow 1992); Lutz Graf-
James Young: “Something massive magical performance – there was a Ulbrich, Nico – In The Shadow Of The Moon Goddess
was being suppressed. There was a lot little stage, maybe 250 seats, the (CSIPP, 2015). John Cooper-Clarke’s poetry anthology
of stuff I like in Nico and Nico’s music, Planetarium machines were working. The Luckiest Guy Alive will be published by Pan
but there’s also stuff I don’t like, ● Lutz ‘Lüül’ The last song she played was You Macmillan in November. His autobiography will follow
because there’s a really dark person Graf-Ulbrich, Forgot To Answer, the song she wrote in 2019. David J. Haskins’ memoir Who Killed Mister
there. For God’s sake, she was born in Nico’s companion for Jim Morrison.” Moonlight? is published by Jawbone Press.
and accompanist
’74-78

MOJO 69
 At the rainbow’s end:
Paul Weller enjoying
a golden moment,
Newlands Corner,
Surrey, June 7, 2018.

70 MOJO
 HE ROAD FROM WOKING manager calls “the game changer”. Bursting with a musical
leads to chocolate-box villages, adventurism that people scarcely believed Weller had in him, it tore
semi-rural civil parishes, an- up the critical caricature of the tunnel-visioned Modfather – the
cient woodland, farm country and green space. dour cartoon that had dogged him since the late ’90s – and did
At the wheel of his Mini Cooper, Paul Weller wonders for his confidence. For Weller, 22 Dreams opened the door
takes the subtle twists and bends of the B2215 to a creative rebirth and made possible a once unimaginable future.
like a motorist who’s been driving this route all The game had indeed changed.
his life. But now it changes again. After a sequence of albums in 2010-17
Today he’s on his way to Newlands Corner, a (Wake Up The Nation, Sonik Kicks, Saturns Pattern, A Kind Revolution)
popular beauty spot, for a MOJO photo shoot. that saw Weller fêted for his fearless innovation, True Meanings, a
Weller is a riot of colour with his red T-shirt, singer-songwriter album with string arrangements, is ironically the
purple jacket, two-tone loafers, silver-fox most abrupt left-turn he’s taken in years. There are no sonik kicks
hair and magenta suntan. He’s been on on this one. There are songs about men and mortality; the spectre
holiday in India, where he and his wife Hannah followed the Beatles of the dead and the grief of the living. Weller, who turned 60 in May,
trail to Rishikesh. With bindis on their foreheads and their sings in a lonesome moan and a sorrowful whisper. At times his ac-
11-month-old daughter Nova in ent sounds Scottish or Irish. Famil-
their arms, they visited the famou ar yet unfamiliar, his weathered voice
ashram and sat where Lennon an elongs to a moonlit realm where
McCartney sat strumming the olkloric balladry meets Tim Hardin,
acoustic guitars in February ’68 Martin Carthy and some eerie Wick-
The Magical Mystery Tour film r Man vibrations. The atmosphere is
had aired on BBC-TV just si reside intimate. Weller is close
weeks earlier. Weller remember nough to reach out and touch.
cajoling his parents (who wer “I was quite conscious, even
watching a variety show on ITV ough I wanted True Meanings to be
to let him change channels during chestrated, that it’s fundamentally
the ad breaks. Anything for a st me and an acoustic guitar,” he
glimpse of Beatles. He was nine. ys. “That’s the core of it. That’s
Steering one-handed, Weller here it starts from – as if I’m sitting
rummages in the door pocket for a room with you, playing you a
a CD-R. We’re approaching a ng. I’m not trying to be clever. I’m
roundabout; take the A247 for ng simple, basic chords and sing-
Guildford and West Clandon. The to you in a folk tradition. Scottish
CD slides in. A ghostly, hovering ent? Well, it depends on the song.
choir sings some sort of prelude. might go a bit transatlantic or I
This autumn Weller will release a ght go a bit Celtic. The voice is an
new album, True Meanings, a 14- rument, and just as you’d adjust
song acoustic set. But this track is tone on your guitar for a particu-
a foretaste of what the next album ong, it’s the same with the voice.”
will sound like. The choir-like One song – called Bowie – begins
opening gives way to heavy drums Weller paraphrasing a renowned
and the tempo veers off into d Bowie quote: “The truth is, of
mutant disco. “It’s called Mirror se, that there is no journey. We
Ball,” he says. “It’s about people arriving and departing all at the
going out for the night, going to e time.” The song appears to be a
clubs, that sort of idea.” Like the ful tribute to Bowie, composed
Surrey scenery, the music changes upon his death in 2016. But in the
again and again from psychedelic third and fourth verses, it becomes a
rock to musique concrète and back good deal more ambiguous. Is Weller
to disco. Is this really all one song? singing about Bowie? Or is he think-
Weller nods. ing of a different Bowie, a much
Reducing speed slightly, he younger one, his six-year-old son
points to a driveway coming up on born in 2012? Moreover, is it the de-
the right. You have enough time to parted Starman or the late John
catch the words on the sign: ‘Wild Weller, Paul’s father, who advises the
Wood.’ Twenty-five years ago, that bereaved: “Look above, you’ll see
sign inspired the title of his me”? Complicating the matter even
second solo album. A different Weller. A different car. The same further – and adding more layers of possible interpretation – is the
roads leading out of Woking into open space. fact that Weller is singing lines that he didn’t actually write. They
were written by an outside lyricist, Erland Cooper of the folk rock
T’S THURSDAY, JUNE 7. TODAY IN WELLER HISTORY, group Erland & The Carnival.
his bestselling 1995 album Stanley Road went on sale in UK Cooper, who penned lyrics for three songs on True Meanings,
record shops. Go back another decade, and tomorrow will heard Weller’s demo of Bowie, which featured a vocal melody but
mark the release – 33 years ago – of The Style Council’s Our only the vaguest outline of words and syllables, and found himself
Favourite Shop. Keep pushing the buttons on the time machine and writing about “mortality, fatherhood and loss”. Weller, without say-
Eyevine, Tom Oldham

Weller, you’ll find, was at Olympic Studios in London 40 years ago ing much, seemed to appreciate the sentiments. Cooper did a sim-
today, recording Billy Hunt for All Mod Cons with Bruce Foxton and ilar thing on White Horses, the album’s final track, which he de-
Rick Buckler. When a career is as long as Weller’s, every date in the scribes to MOJO as “a message from Paul to his children – but also
calendar is an anniversary. a message from Paul’s dad to Paul. It’s a message that says, ‘Look,
Ten years ago this week, he released 22 Dreams – the album his we’re all born, we all die. It’s wild out there, but it’s lonely ➢

72 MOJO
“The voice is an instrument”:
Paul Weller today, and
(opposite) on-stage with
The Jam, Bilzen Festival,
Belgium, August 13, 1978.
 echoes of The Changingman
chords, and features some
gorgeous strings.

(from Days Of Speed, 2001)

One of the thrills
of Weller’s
millennial solo
acoustic tour: a
resurrection of
this lilting
Francophile waltz from The Style
Council’s Our Favourite Shop.
Sadly, no reprise of the original’s
French verse: “Noir comme la
nuit/Oui, noir comme mon âme!”

(from 22 Dreams, 2008)

“Come out to
play!” is an apt
way to open
Weller’s most
exploratory
album, and its
dramatic acoustic guitar and
violin duet a gauge of the journey
from English Rose. See also: Cold
Moments; Why Walk When You
Can Run; in fact, roughly half of
Weller’s most meditative album.

(from Jawbone, 2017)

Weller’s never
been short of
compassion, but
this delicate,
intimate creation
seems to live
inside its subject, out of puff but
still running. Paul’s ex-boxer dad,
John, might be on his mind;
maybe himself, too. Could be a
hundred years old, this song.

(from True Meanings/single, 2018)

Lost and found
– Weller’s always
in one place or
t’other. Here, he’s
not sure which,
but he’s looking
(from All Mod Cons, 1978) (from Wild Wood/single, 1993) for the answer inside, where it
normally is. His guitar playing is
The Big Bang of Weller’s second
(from Introducing: The Style his most sparing ever – barely a
ruminative Weller, solo album was
Council, 1983) tingle – and Hannah Peel’s strings
a glaringly stark the sound of him
Brazenly are exquisite.
and economical getting his head
trumpeted the together in the By Danny Eccleston. With guidance
brown study
news that Weller country. Acoustic from David Cavanagh.
growing out of
had ‘gone soft’. flavours abounded – notably here,
found sounds from our grey Further listening: Everything Has A
Acoustic chords, but also Country and the
shores to make a pact with British Price To Pay (B-side, Above The
full of sunshine, semi-acoustic jazz swoon of
folk traditions. Hats off, too, for Clouds, 1992); The Loved (B-side,
chime with the high-spirited child-hymning Moon On Your
the arcane, “For nothing can ever Hung Up, 1994); It’s A New Day,
word-use (“Guess we must be Pyjamas. Best bit? The way he digs
tempt me from she”. Baby (B-side, The Changingman,
kissed by this force…”) and theme into “high tide”.
of renewal. Remade, more beefily, 1995); Bag Man (from Illumination,
on the fully-fledged Café Bleu. 2002); The Start Of Forever (from As
(B-side,You Do Something Is Now, 2005).
(from Sound Affects, 1980; To Me, 1995)
single, 1981) (B-side, Uh Huh Oh Yeh, 1992)
Nothing winsome Weller’s
about this rediscovery of
acoustic-led guitars of all types
vignette of urban fed into his terrific
ennui. Weller’s first solo album –
strumming is as which this slightly her 1994 live a
brutal as that still-startling “kick in Buddhist twangle didn’t quite Valentine. Wel
the balls”, while the lyric should make (NB: There’s another great version, recor
remind anyone feeling nostalgic versh on the At The BBC box set). Is at Stanley Roa
for the late-’70s just how horrible it the same tune as Electronic’s sessions,
they really were. Get The Message? It’s adjacent. betrays gentle Putting on the style:
Weller in 1984; (below)
with Ray Winstone at
the Jawbone premiere,
May 8, 2017.
 Where he should be:
Weller contemplates
truth and meaning on
the North Downs, Surrey.

➣
alone, so make the most of it. Don’t lay at night alone.’” performing the bulk of True Meanings – plus a selection of 15 or so
Cooper, in fact, seems to have spotted the underlying theme of songs from his 40-year discography – with a chamber orchestra.
True Meanings before Weller spotted it himself. The nerves are beginning to jangle already.
“It’s about generations,” Cooper says. “It’s about how we “It’s a weird thing, right,” he says, “because even though it’s still
communicate with each other, fathers to children, and how months away, I’ve got to decide the setlist now. The arranger,
important it is to get it right.” Hannah [Peel], needs time to do her stuff. But also… until you start
The day they completed White Horses, Weller handed Nova, his playing these songs and actually doing them live, you don’t know
new-born baby, into Cooper’s arms and there could no longer be whether they’re going to work with an orchestra or not. So yeah,
any doubt what the album was about. I’m extremely nervous. I’ve never done anything like it before.
You’ve got to stick to the script, and I’m someone who always gets
HE POTHOLES IN THE ROAD THAT LEADS TO to a certain point in the evening where I want to fucking smash it.”
Weller’s studio are so treacherous that local residents and He leads the way out of the studio and across a concrete pathway
business owners have been asked to donate £2,000 each to to a cottage, one of two that he owns, separated from the studio by
have them repaired. The council won’t help; they say it’s a private a garden gate. When Weller works late, he and his wife stay in one
road. Weller and his neighbours are faced with two choices – either cottage and his musicians sleep in the cottage next door. Not that
pay the two grand or risk having to fork out for new tyres and a new the music ever really stops. The Wellers’ kitchen has an upright
suspension if they misjudge a pothole. Weller’s Mini makes the piano leaning up against the wall facing the breakfast table. The
return journey from Newlands Corner just about unscathed. Mod-punk spraypaint logo of The Jam adorns the piano stool;
In the studio’s management office, the next four or five months Weller may not entertain so much as a thought of re-forming them,
of Weller’s life are being planned and finalised. The artwork for True but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t proud of them. We sit down at the
Alamy, Getty, Tom Oldham

Meanings is a pressing topic; Weller is smoking a cigarette on the table. He looks relaxed, happy. You get the sense True Meanings has
cover, which will cause problems with advertising. There may have satisfied whatever part of him it was meant to satisfy. Soon there will
to be some airbrushing done to the posters, because Weller be the habitual desire to move on.
certainly isn’t going to re-shoot the cover. Meanwhile, suitable “It’s a one-off album,” he stresses. “It’s not a new direction –
rehearsal spaces are being identified and followed up. Later in the definitely not. And even though I’m going to do these two shows at
year Weller will play two nights at the Royal Festival Hall, the Festival Hall to help it, or promote it, or whatever the ➢

MOJO 75
 ➣
expression is, it’s not the sort of thing that interests me to tour. Several songs on the album have a late-night, alone-in-the-dark
I know I’d get bored after a while.” feel. We can imagine you sitting there, frowning and thinking, the
What made you want to do an acoustic album in the first place? only light in the room coming from your cigarette. There’s a lot of
“I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, storing songs away. solitude, a lot of references to the lateness of the hour.
I had a song called Gravity, which has been around for a long time, “It’s the only time I ever get a chance to write. When everyone
probably five or six years. But I didn’t feel I had the right album to else has gone to bed, that’s the only free time I have. If the songs
put it on. In some ways I kind of wrote the rest of this record around have a late-night feel, it’s because that’s when they were written. I
that song, just so that it would have a home to go to.” think also, once you put an acoustic guitar in someone’s hands, it
Did you want True Meanings out in the year you turned 60? always goes that way. An introspective time. The witching hour.”
He smirks. “I thought that 60 was probably the right age to be The hour of self-doubt? Worrying about the state of the world?
making a record like this. Very much with my tongue in cheek.” “Yeah, I guess.”
You mean like a sit-down record? Do you worry about the state of the world?
“Exactly. A ‘Val Doonican Swings’ “I hate to say it, but the world is
type of record.” fucked. I’ve got kids of all different
Why did you co-write four songs ages, and I have to be optimistic for
with other lyricists? You’ve made a their sake. But if I look at it, it’s just in
point of writing your own words since a shambolic state. What’s happening in
you were a teenager. America is scary. Mass shootings every
“I was completely open to the idea month as well. It’s history repeating
of working with other writers. I was itself. There’s so many great advances
quite happy to ask someone else to in medicine and technology, and that’s
write the words. I’ve got so bored with the route we should all be following.
my own vocabulary. It was nice to bring But there are dark forces trying to drag
some new ideas in. That worked out us back to the old days, whether it’s
really well, I think. It was nice to expand my own little universe.” fascists or religions. It’s almost like the first stirrings of World War
What about your voice? It’s extraordinarily up-close and per- III. It’s the most dangerous and dramatic time in my lifetime.”
sonal. Are you learning any new things about your voice at 60?
“I’m able to do more. Way, way more. More than I could even ITH NOVA WELLER NOT EVEN A YEAR OLD,
just a few years ago. When I listen back to my old records, which her father’s anxiety about the future reminds him, in-
isn’t often, I get so frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t sing. I know evitably, of his twenties, when he engaged full-on with
how much better I could sing those old songs. I had to listen to politics, joined CND and fretted about the possibility of nuclear
some Style Council stuff recently for rehearsal reasons, and I had to Armageddon. Here he is at 60, and once more he wonders if the
turn it off because my voice just disappointed me. It was all over the time has come to dip a cautious toe back into the waters of political
fucking place. Too much thought involved, that was the problem. campaigning. He always swore he wouldn’t. But the first stirrings of
These days I don’t have to think so much. I’ve got a better tone than World War III have a way of changing a man’s mind.
I ever had. My range is still good – low and high. How long that will Weller is, by his own definition, a modernist and a multicultural-
last is anyone’s guess, but while you’ve got it, use it.” ist. In June 2016, while the population of Britain voted on whether

76 MOJO
 Rebel yell: Weller in his ’90s pomp,
National Sports Centre, Crystal
Palace, August 13, 1997; (opposite
page, clockwise from left) Weller
reads up on Big Brother; Paul and
dad John backstage on the final Jam
tour, December 1982; joining Labour
leader Neil Kinnock on the Red
Wedge hustings, 1987; with Jeremy
and Tommy Corbyn, December 2016.

to remain in the European Union or whether to leave it, Weller – about each other. It’s often painted by the media that we’re divided,
with no little symbolism – was out of the country, performing in but we’re not. The media and the propagandists are not in touch
Amsterdam at one of the most multicultural events staged anywhere with those people down there. Everyone was out. My mate, who’s a
in the world that month, with Damon Albarn, The Orchestra Of Sikh, he was out distributing food. There were Muslim Aid workers
Syrian Musicians and an assortment of musical guests from there. All sorts of people.”
America, Algeria, Lebanon, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Tunisia. He shakes his head impatiently. But nothing’s been done, he
“I’m lucky,” he says. “I live in a bubble. Where I live in West says. Or not enough. There are still displaced Grenfell tenants being
London, there’s everyone under the sun. All different kinds of peo- temporarily accommodated in hotels. Why aren’t the authorities
ple. And to me, they’re all part of England. The new face of our getting a move on? “You think of all those empty buildings – office
country – or what it should be anyway. I look around Ladbroke blocks, whatever – that stand dormant in London and could house
Grove and Portobello Road, and there’s just everyone, man. When those people.”
Grenfell happened last year [the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017], He may not have voted in the EU Referendum (a careless over-
me and my kids went down there and took some stuff… clothes, sight, he insists), but Weller surprised a lot of people by lending his
Facebook, Avalon (2), Getty

nappies, you know. And there was just everyone you can think of. support in 2016 to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. More than
Rich, poor, all colours, all cultures, all races. Everyone was on the any other figure involved in the Red Wedge movement of the mid
street helping. And there was no one directing them, there were no ’80s – and its ultimately doomed attempt to put Neil Kinnock in
official government people or council people directing them. These Downing Street – Weller has always given the impression of having
people were just doing it. They organised themselves. That feeling had his fingers badly burned by getting too deeply mixed up in pol-
gives you hope. Hope that there’s a section of society that does care itics. Yet, in his first overtly political gesture since the dissolution ➢

MOJO 77
 When Paul first started
writing songs [circa
1972/73] I was immediately
impressed. There was a
song called Takin’ My Love,
a little blues thing that we’d
based on One After 909,
something The Beatles had
written when they were
teenagers. The Jam did a
punked-up version on the first single, In The City.
That was a good little song.
At the beginning of The Jam we were aiming
to be a varied band like The Beatles, and in a weird
way I thought The Style Council was much more
like the model we imagined. When he started to
lean towards the Mod thing, that’s where we
parted ways, but there was never any bitterness.
I’ve played on his solo records here and there.
There’s been times when I’ve visited him in the
studio and he’s just chucked a guitar at me and
said, “Come on, do something on this.” More
recently, he’s started giving me some warning!
I played some acoustic on a track on the new
album called Mayfly – another good little song.
It goes without saying that he has a passion
but what I’m always struck by is his amazing level
of concentration, whether he’s playing or
recording or mixing. He’s a consummate artist.
People’s opinions on where he’s going don’t
concern him, and when you get a Paul Weller
record, it’s always completely what he intended.
There’ll never be a situation where a producer got
the better of him. This is his life’s work. He doesn’t
want to look back and say, “I wish I’d done it
another way.” And I’ve never heard him say it.

When I first met Paul, it was his attitude that set

him apart. He was always going to make it in the
music business. There was no question.
All Mod Cons was the leap forward. We’d had
the success of In The City. Then the press weren’t
Headphones for happiness:
really having This Is The Modern World. So it was a Weller and Mick Talbot con-
make or break situation, and with All Mod Cons we vene The Style Council, 1983;
struck gold – everyone loved it. (bottom left) Bruce Foxton
English Rose was a key moment in Paul’s jumps to it in The Jam, Music
songwriting. But it threw a lot of people: “Playing Machine, London, 1978.
acoustic guitars? We can’t have this!” But we were
pushing ourselves, and Paul had this ability to
observe things – like Ray Davies. Down In The
Tube Station At Midnight – a very haunting song.
That’s Entertainment! – what a great lyric.
Coming back to play on Wake Up The Nation –
I just slotted straight back in. It was friends and
f il

ork?” But between Paul and myself nothing had think, of Paul’s curiosity about things that he
anged. It was, cup of tea, let’s have a crack at it. bothered to listen to the B-side of a record he
On his last album, A Kind Revolution, I really didn’t like! That’s the questing side of him.
ved Long Long Road. It’s a good honest song I played on Heatwave on Setting Sons, and did
th a great melody. He rates that one too? There a couple of shows with The Jam at the Rainbow.
go. That’s why we were in a band together! After Paul split The Jam, he gave me a call, but
there didn’t seem to be a plan as such for The Style
Council. He had loose ideas but he was very open.
The first session we did resulted in Speak Like A
Child, Solid Bond In Your Heart, and Money-Go-
first met at Town House studios in Shepherd’s Round, which came out of a jam, then Paul added
sh towards the end of ’79. Paul had met my this poem he’d had for a while. At the time people
other Danny, who was in the Merton Parkas compared it to The Blockheads but for me it was
h me; there was some talk of Paul producing almost like an English Gil Scott-Heron thing.
but the schedules didn’t work out. We made a After that first session, Paul seemed to have an
le – You Need Wheels; Paul said he didn’t like endless stream of songs, and it was like every
ut fortunately for me he listened to the B-side, song was a screenplay and the cast assembled
on’t Want To Know You, which had an electric accordingly. We tried not to self-label. We liked
no break on it that he liked. It was indicative, I jazz but didn’t think we were jazz musicians. It
 Erland Cooper, he’s
found the meaning.

and I was convinced, based on no knowledge

whatsoever, that this was Northern soul. I still
think it’s Northern soul!
When I was 17, retaking my O-levels, I got on a
bus and went to Solid Bond Studios to give him
a demo of the band I was in. He was über-cool. He
made me a cup of tea, listened to the demo, and
told me it sounded like The Jam! Later, he offered
Ocean Colour Scene some supports, then asked
me to come down and add some guitar to a track
– The Weaver. I was so nervous, I swallowed a
chunk of hash; by the time I got to his I was
tripping! I went upstairs and he rolled a joint, and
we’re smoking this doubrie, and I start burning all
these hash holes in his carpet! To be honest, I
really couldn’t play guitar at the time. But Paul
said, “I think you’re the right person. You’ll learn
along the way.”
He’s an amazing conductor. Working with an
ensemble, sometimes he has a firm idea of what
he wants. Sometimes he goes with the flow. It’s
never written in stone – or that’s how it seems to
me. Because he started on the bass, he’s a brilliant more youthfulness and energy and stamina
bass guitar player. And he’s a better singer than than most folk I meet in their twenties. I think
most people know. His voice has changed, got it’s because he doesn’t sit down for very long
deeper, has more vibrato. It really suits him. when he works. “Right, straight in, let’s go.” And
He’s cashmere. Quality. He’s a suedehead, and then he moves on to the next one. It’s a great
a rudeboy even more than he is a Mod. And a pace, a great energy. True Meanings [the title
hippy! And I like how he keeps his life together, his track Cooper and Weller co-wrote] is really just
family. He’s got a lot of love to share and mouths his voice and a lyric. It’s a lovely approach,
to feed and he does an amazing job at that. That is particularly when people expected him to do an
success, isn’t it – more than the gold discs. album like his last one. I think that’s what I like
most about him. His approach is never quite
what people expect.

Paul Weller meant an awful

lot to me growing up. His
lyrics were intelligent and
sharp and the music was I was absolutely the right
stripped down and vital. age for Stanley Road. That
I loved his voice. It was was a big album for me
quite gruff but had aloof when I was starting to
punch. It was like the voices write. I suppose I would
I heard all around me. His have been 12. When I was
lyrics just melted onto my that age, Green Day were
experience of the world and made me feel like the thing. And you think,
I was seeing the world in sharp contrast to other “Wow, Green Day are
people… in Technicolor! doing this music for the
As a teenager I loved Going Underground, first time.” But then you realise there’s this
Dreams Of Children, Away From The Numbers, whole history of jagged, exciting guitar music,
Life From A Window… I really loved The Paris and when you find The Jam, you get rid of the
Match, too; I never saw The Jam but I saw The Style Green Day records. I had very nerdy friends and
Council at the Ipswich Gaumont. There was we used to sit and drink tea and play Jam
a lot of idealism and a particular sort of pride, in bootlegs. Those first three albums are brilliant
how you looked and what you believed to be records. They sounded so much more raw and
was more about a passion for different sorts of right, but there were beautiful romantic songs exciting than the stuff on the radio when I was
music and trying things and not being frightened.
too. I loved the cacophony of The Gift and Trans- young. I used to play English Rose a lot. I
Like The Story Of Someones Shoe [from
Global Express with all that echo on his voice. remember the chords of it being very important
Confessions Of A Pop Group, 1988], the tune we
I think Paul phoned in when I was talking on in terms of learning new ways to make shapes
used the Swingle Singers on, which was feeding
the Steve Lamacq show. He had heard a track of with my fingers.
off the MJQ album [Encounter/Place Vendôme,
mine called Click Click Click and liked it. We then
1966]. Our arranger Johnny Mealing happened to
started talking a bit and he invited me to work on
mention that he was working with the Swingles
a song that he had knocking about for a while that
and I could see a light bulb go on in Paul’s head.
turned into This Old Town. He blew my mind in the
The great thing about Paul is whatever era you
studio. The engineer hit record and his voice was
Avalon (2), Rich Gilligan, Alamy (2), Barry P,ummer, Stevebrookesmusic.com

look at, his belief in what he’s written is infectious.

so bloody powerful! It was so rich and big. Later,
And he has a very nurturing way with musicians, There’s a side of Paul
I did a drum bit here and a guitar bit there on
where it’s like he has more belief in you than you that’s quiet and
22 Dreams. That was brilliant, and hearing the
have in yourself. I’ve seen it work on other people reflective. He writes the
playback of that album in somewhat of an altered
and I know it’s worked on me. most incredible melody
state… I thought he was totally insane!
What have I learned from him? To not give a lines and he gives you the
toss what people think. To make the music you space to write intricate
want to make. To be brave and go beyond what you stuff around them. With
have immediate knowledge of. His enthusiasm the string arrangements
My sister gave me a still amazes me. He is an inspirational musician on True Meanings, he
cassette that she’d and bloke. wanted stuff that flowed
recorded off Top Of The very easily, coming in and out like a tide. He’d
Pops – it was A Town Called say things like, “I want a rising melody here” or
Malice. But the first time he “I want this to sound really stabby (imitates
hit me was the B-side on Psycho strings).” He would describe things
The Bitterest Pill – Pity Poor metaphorically. I’m honoured that he trusted
Alfie. I was 11 and I played it me to write arrangements for him. I’m half his
every day, countless times, What’s it like working at Black Barn? Lots of Indian age and there’s any number of well-known
for perhaps the next… 30 food and lots of scones from the café. A really arrangers he could have asked.
years. It’s still one of my favourite songs. I’d read good atmosphere, but it’s a work environment.
something in Smash Hits! about Northern soul It’s what I love about Paul. At 60, I feel he’s got As told to David Cavanagh and Danny Eccleston

MOJO 79
 Roundhouse playing
the whole album in its entirety.
(Island, 2008) That was really hard work.
Paul Weller’s Which I’m not averse to, but
ninth solo sometimes you think, Is this
album – his brave or is this just stupid?
first double – I think in the last 15 to 20 years,
lit the blue audiences have changed.
touch paper I notice it when I play festivals
on a new era of creativity. – how mainstream things have
“I was fully expecting people got, musically and taste-wise.”
not to like it,” he says. “But the
reaction to it was very positive.
People seemed to really love
the fact that it was sprawling
and went all over the place. So
that encouraged me to go
further, and maybe not have
such a fixed idea of what a ➣
record should sound like. It of Red Wedge nearly 30 years ago, Weller took part in a Decem-
was suddenly a case of ‘Get in ber 2016 Corbyn fundraiser in Brighton alongside his friend Robert
there and see where the record
wants to go.’” Wyatt and the veteran double-bass player Danny Thompson.
Weller met Corbyn in Brighton, found him “sincere” and noted
with approval that he wasn’t trailing a vast entourage of fawning
sycophants in his wake – not at that precise moment at any rate.
(Island, 2010) But Weller remembers his uneasiness about Kinnock, and the
A more (Parlophone, 2015) humiliation of ’87, and is generally careful not to commit himself to
vigorous, A subtler beast, with a tang of
sonically
anything that cannot later be cancelled. Further public appearances
Macca, but still entrancingly
strident varied. Weller: “That is a on Corbyn’s behalf are neither ruled in nor ruled out.
counterpart to fucking great record – one of “I’d like to pick and choose. But I do think Corbyn’s a good man
the inward- the best things I’ve ever done. and I think he could be good for our country. I can’t say too much
looking 22 Dreams. “That was The sound of it, the mixing on
a difficult one to tour,” recalls it, the breadth of the songs.
because I don’t want to be too involved. I don’t really…” He
Weller. “Trees – trying to do Hopefully there’ll be better pauses for a few moments and then comes at the subject from a
that one live was very difficult. ones to come, but yeah, different angle. “To me, the system sucks. You have to change
It’s in several parts and it’s got
Saturns is a peak. The mark of a things. You have to change the system. And that’s easier said than
all these little segues. That was
really good record, from my
the only problem with Wake
point of view, is when I still
done, man. I don’t think there’s one person – not one single man
Up…, trying to replicate the or woman – who can change all that.”
sound. Good songs, though. want to keep playing those
7&3 Is The Strikers Name was songs live. And we play an Even if Corbyn were to bring about the eventual destruction of
already fucking mad as it was, awful lot of songs from Saturns capitalism and begin a process of redistributing the wealth, would
but hearing Kevin Shields put live. It was the same with
Stanley Road; there’s lots of that really be something that a wealthy man like Weller would
his stuff down on it… When
we play it live, though, songs I still do from that endorse? He hesitates for only a second before replying.
ffffwheeww… it goes over record. They just stand up.” “I don’t know. A fairer system? Sharing the wealth? Nationalis-
people’s heads.” ing our industries? I don’t think they’re bad things. They’re good
things. Looking after the whole structure that was built up after the
(Island, 2012) (Parlophone, 2017)
Second World War, like National Health and Welfare. Caring about
Doubling down on the Wake A spiritual your community. It’s the antithesis of that Thatcher thing of ‘there
Up… sound, with added journey, with is no such thing as society’. Corbyn’s saying the opposite of that,
midlife self-awareness (That
Dangerous Age) and brazen
hymns to and that’s how it should be.”
renewal (The
theatricality (Kling I Klang). Cranes Are
But you’re wary of getting into something you can’t get out of?
“I like that record,” says its “Yeah, I don’t want to be sucked into it. I’m not someone who
Back was
creator. “It’s got a very unusual
sound to it. When it came out,
offered to Jeremy Corbyn as joins a party. I’m in the Mod Party and that’s good enough for me.”
a campaign anthem) and a And what are some of the policies of the Mod Party in 2018?
I did five nights at the
touch of jazz, but it’s not
settled into Weller’s affections “Just looking forward. Learning to embrace everything and
n quite the same way as its finding a way forward that’s good for you. Modernism in general,
predecessors: “It’s got some really. Multiculturalism, of course. Adapting and learning. They’re
good moments on it. It’s not
my favourite. Satellite Kid is
all good qualities, I think.”
good. Long Long Road is great. All the same, you’re a very wealthy, successful person. Does that
There’s a couple of things I not impact at all on your politics?
don’t like on it, but I’m not “I’ve been extremely lucky, yeah, and I live ver y, ver y
going to say which ones. A
couple of things I’m not happy comfortably. I’ve made money and I’ve lived well. But I would never,
with or would have done ever describe myself as middle-class. That would be a big fucking
differently. But overall? Yeah, insult for me. I’m still staunchly working-class regardless of the
t’s good. It’s all right.”
money I’ve made and how I’ve got on in life. That’s very, very
important to me. That’s my roots. My cultural roots. Where I come
 Family man: Weller on-
stage in Bournemouth,
February 18, 2018;
(opposite page) with
children Natt and Leah,
and wife Hannah, 2014.

from, we didn’t have a pot to piss in. I haven’t forgotten that.” relationship in most families at the time, Weller’s dad gave up his
Do any of your children self-identify as working-class? own job to help the adolescent Paul pursue his embryonic musical
“No. They were born into a totally different life. It’s not their vision. It was almost as if the Weller men swapped roles at that
fault, it’s just the way it is. If I try and tell them about how we lived moment: Paul as the breadwinner; John the enabler.
when I was a kid – outside toilet, no bathroom, no hot tap, the little “I was so lucky. He actively encouraged my music and saw some-
things we all take for granted – they would just think it was thing that even I couldn’t see. Maybe he was just being a biased,
hilarious. And why shouldn’t they? They were born into a more loving dad. He worked on a building site sometimes, and other
privileged lifestyle. They’ve gone to times he did a bit of cabbing. My mum
good schools.” was a cleaner. It wasn’t like they were
Private schools? academics and expecting me to be a
“Yeah. Some of them have gone to lawyer. They wouldn’t say to me, ‘You
state schools and some have gone to need to put that guitar down and get a
private schools. Our twins – Hannah proper job.’ They saw it as a good thing
and I have got twin boys – are home- that I loved music and was dedicated to
schooled. That’s quite different. They it. Not showbiz parents, obviously, but
go to home-schooling classes a couple interested in where it could lead to.
of times a week. If they want to learn They could see that I was serious.”
French, they’ll do so at some point. If Paul Weller became the fulcrum on
they don’t, they won’t. But they’re as which the family’s history turned; the
bright as a button and their vocabulary point in the Wellers’ genealogy when
is brilliant. And academia? Well, they’ll they moved from hardship to affluence.
learn as they go along. I’ve got another son who’s 13 and he’s Even so, nothing erases the memories of childhood or sweetens the
leaving his school soon to go to another one. He’s been at school misery of his schooling.
since he was four. That’s a big, big chunk of his life. That’s a time “In history,” he says bitterly, “you learn about kings and queens
when you could be left alone just to be a kid and explore and learn.” first and foremost. But why don’t you learn about the workers who
Weller feels passionately about education partly because his own built this country? Royalty might have stolen it and siphoned it off,
was such a disaster. He hated school and retains strong hostile but what about the working men and women who built it? You
feelings about the routines, the rituals and the rigmaroles that can never learn about them. There was always an element of ‘know your
easily, he maintains, wear a child down and crush their spirit. He place.’ And I don’t think it’s changed too much, because when I talk
quotes Lennon: “As soon as you’re born, they make you feel small.” to my kids, they’re still being taught the same shit about Henry
He left school at the earliest available opportunity. VIII. You don’t get a true sense of history. Or culture. Or what
Getty

At which point, in a remarkable reversal of the father-son we’ve all come through together.” ➢

MOJO 81
 WEEK LATER, BLACK BARN IS A BUSY PLACE else, it’s brought so many other things into my life. There’s so much
inside and out. Blond-haired children play on the clarity and appreciation of people and life and everything around
pathway. Hannah Weller, all in black, is cradling Nova who me. I’d have to say, yes, they have been my happiest 10 years.”
keeps dropping toys onto the pebbles. A band called Stone Founda- Is there a plan for how you’d like the next 10 years to go? Do you
tion, whose last studio album Weller produced, are have an endgame in mind?
wrapping up a meeting in the studio. Bradley Wiggins is due any “Not at all. I take every day as it comes. You get to my age and
minute with a Sky Arts camera crew to film an interview with Paul you wake up and think, Oh that’s good, I’m still alive. Another day’s
about the Mod movement. Test pressings of True Meanings have ar- starting and here I am. There’s no endgame. My only ambition is to
rived. Weller doesn’t like the volume levels on the vinyl and suggests live longer and carry on making music. I saw Peter Blake recently
to his senior engineer that they should send it back for re-cutting. [who is 86]. I went to his studio and he was showing me this new set
There’s a red Teletubby lying on its back on the mixing desk. of pictures he’s done, collages he’s done, and they were amazing,
The walls of the office flash and gleam with silver, gold and Just incredible. Apart from any physical ailments he might have or
platinum discs for The Jam, The Style Council and Weller’s solo whatever, his mind – his creative mind – is still as good and as sharp
career. One quick glance along one wall can take in 30 years of a as ever. I don’t think that runs out, your creative mind, as long as
man’s life. His long-serving road manager, Kenny Wheeler, sits you’re willing to stay open-minded and not get bogged down by
behind a desk staring into a laptop. On the wall behind Wheeler’s your own past and legacy. If you remain open-minded, there should
head is a sketch of John Weller, sporting a pugnacious expression be no reason why it stops.”
and an enormous white quiff. Hannah There’s a scene in Jawbone
strolls through the kitchen carr ying where Ray Winstone, playing the
Nova. “I childproofed my home – but part of the mortally ill owner of a
they still get in,” a fridge magnet reads. boxing club, coaches his callow
In the bathroom, someone has balanced boys to square up to their
a framed NME Style Council front cover opponent. Don’t look down at the
on the lavatory cistern, showing Weller floor, he says. Keep your eyes
in warpaint holding a spear the size of a straight ahead. “Look at your man,”
tree. He really does have a perverse he tells them. “When you look in
sense of humour. Every day at Black his eyes, you can see all of him.”
Barn, he’s surrounded by his past, his Paul Weller has always been a fan of
present and his future, until it’s hard to direct eye contact – it can be quite
remember whether they’re three unnerving at times – and as an even
distinct periods or all the same one. bigger fan of Ray Winstone, he
“I get bored pretty quickly,” he believes Jawbone is the actor’s
fidgets. “I find it hard to listen to old greatest performance. Can we see
stuff, even the record before the one all of Weller by looking in his eyes,
before last. Whether I’ll always be like or is it just a good line in a movie?
that, I don’t know. But I like the feeling Would he let us in, or is there still
that I’m still in this motion – that I’m too much that needs protecting?
still going forward, that I’ve got a new “Who knows what’s going to
song on the go. Those things are the life- happen in 10 years?” he asks. “Or
blood to me. They keep me interested.” even next week? I’ve just seen an
If he starts his next album with old mate who I hadn’t seen for six
Mirror Ball, as he says he might, that will weeks. It was incredible how much
make five Weller albums in a row – change there’d been in his life. I
Saturns Pattern, A Kind Revolution, Music saw him six weeks ago and every-
From The Film Jawbone, True Meanings thing was fine, beautiful. Six weeks
and the as-yet-untitled 2019 release – later, his world’s upside down.
that announce themselves with startling, Who knows? Worry about it when
and startlingly dissimilar, opening tracks. it happens. Enjoy it while you can.”
A blistering 21st century blues (White Today is Thursday, June 14. On
Sky). An exuberant Stax-Volt rave-up this date in Weller history, he sang
(Woo Sé Mama). A haunting epic with The Changingman on Top Of The
vivid Harold Budd flashbacks (Jimmy/ Pops in 1995 like a man possessed,
Blackout). A folk song about a restless every sinew in his body trying to
spirit (The Soul Searchers). A disco tune exit via the neck. In 1982, he was
in nine parts (Mirror Ball). It’s surely the on-stage with Bruce and Rick at the
most catholic run of opening songs in Nakano Sun Plaza Hall in Tokyo on
any contemporar y artist’s histor y. The Jam’s third (and final) Japanese
Perhaps we should compare him to tour. Twelve months after that, he
David Bowie more than we do. was recording the first Style
Have the last 10 years been the Council album with Mick Talbot.
happiest of your life? The decade that’s He’s still absolutely positive that it
taken you from 50 to 60? was the right thing to do.
“Probably. Yeah, I think so.” He re- Wiggins has arrived. The camera
flects on that. “There’s something good crew begins setting up. Weller
about it, definitely. Age brings a certain lights another cigarette, puffs on it
kind of wisdom – and I don’t want to and holds it away from his body like
bang on about this, but getting sober was a teabag he’s rescued from the sink.
Tom Oldham

a big part of it – and certainly in “Fucking things,” Paul Weller

the last eight years, since I “Enjoy it while you says, exhaling. “They’ll get me in
stopped drinking and whatever can”: Weller in 2018,
living for the present, the end.” M
looking to the future.

82 MOJO
 MOJO FILTE R
YOUR GUIDE TO THE MONTH'S BEST MUSIC
EDITED BY JENNY BULLEY [email protected]

CONTENTS
84 ALBUMS
s 7HITE $ENIMS UNRULY RETURN
s )NTERPOLS LATE STAGE RAMPAGE
s 4OMBERLIN A DEBUT WITH REAL PROMISE
s 'ET PRIMITIVE WITH 'LENN *ONES
s 0LUS -ITSKI #ANDI 3TATON /H 3EES .AT "IRCHALL
!NNA #ALVI AND MORE

100 REISSUES
s 0LASTIC PASSION 4EENAGE &ANCLUB ON VINYL
s 4HE 7RECKING #REW COMPILED
s 0LUS 4HE !NIMALS &IERY &URNACES "UNNY 7AILER
0OSIES .ICK -ASON 0ROCOL (ARUM AND MORE

112 BOOKS
s $ISCOVERING %UROPES OLDEST SURVIVING FOLK MUSIC
s 0LUS ,IFE AFTER 4HE $EAD +ENNEY *ONES 4HE
4HE 3EYMOUR 3TEIN AND MORE

114 SCREEN
s (URRICANE PARTY HOW .EW /RLEANS MUSICIANS
RECOVERED FROM +ATRINA

116 LIVES
s 2OBERT 3MITHgS -ELTDOWN $AVID "YRNE IN
,ONDON

INDEX
“A misanthrope Aizawa, Tohru 105 Kane, Miles 86 Shires, Amanda 89
music historian Animals, The
Arp
102
91
Kassin
Lanegan, Mark &
93 Staton, Candi
Stoltz, Kelley
88
90
learns to lose Baker, Mickey
BC Camplight
Birchall, Nat
105
94
92
Garwood, Duke
Laurel
Magie Salute, The 86
88
92
Teenage Fanclub 100
Tenderlonious
Tomberlin
91
88
himself in the Brian Jonestown
Massacre, The 94
Manfred Mann
Mason, Nick
107
102
Tunng
VA: A Kaleidoscope
94

wild present.” Calvi, Anna

Copeland, Shemekia 91
Coral, The
90

90
Matty
Mitski
Nash, Israel
91
92
89
Of Sounds
VA: Black Man’s
Pride 2
106

107
IT’S ALL GREEK TO Death Cab For Cutie 90 Nau, Michael 90 VA: Disque Debs
ANDREW MALE. Dyble, Judy 89 Nelson, Willie 106 International 105
Ellis, Don 106 O’Rourke, Jim 93 VA: Got The Blues 107
BOOKS P112 Fernweh, The 92 O’Sullivan, Gilbert 94 VA: Listen All Around 105
Fiery Furnaces 106 Oh Sees 92 VA: Music City Blues 106
Finn, Neil & Liam 94 Orions Belte 90 VA: Planet Beat 102
Fogerty, John 102 Papa M 86 VA: The Meaning
Fujita, Masayoshi 91 Peyroux, Madeleine 86 Of The Blues 105
Garcia Peoples 91 Pineapple Thief, The 88 VA: The Sound Of
Giant Sand 92 Pop Iggy & Ivor Raymonde 102
Gordon, Dexter 102 Underworld 95 VA: The Wrecking
Hilang Child 92 Posies, The 102 Crew 103
Idles 94 Pretty Things, The 104 Wailer, Bunny 105
Immersion 93 Proclaimers, The 89 Wave Pictures, The 93
Interpol 87 Procol Harum 106 White Denim 84
James 86 Russell, Greg & Westbrook, Mike 106
Jayhawks, The 89 Algar, Ciaran 89 Williamson, James
Jones, Glenn 90 Segall, Ty & White & The Pink Hearts 88
Joseph, Kathryn 94 Fence 93 Wobble, Jah 93

MOJO 83
 F I LT E R A L B UM S

Spaced station
Austin cult heroes’ high energy collision of genres and ideas is like spinning
the dial on a car radio. David Fricke tunes in on a fast, exhilarating,
unpredictable ride. Illustration by Jane Sanders.
A second guitarist, Austin Jenkins, joined in
White Denim 2010. Three years later, he and Block quit to work
★★★★ with a local discovery, the neo-soul singer Leon
Bridges. Through all of that surge and change,
Performance White Denim were consistent in their hook-
enriched whiplash and power trio minimalism.
CITY SLANG. CD/DL/LP
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who produced 2013’s
Corsicana Lemonade, let a little air into the zoom.

T
HE FIRST thing you hear on Performance
– the seventh or eighth studio album by On 2016’s Stiff, their first record since the split,
the indie-rock whirlwind White Denim, Terebecki and Petralli – with producer Ethan
depending on how you tabulate their chaotic Johns – added more keyboard light and R&B
discography – is the unmistakable spasm of car- party flourishes.
radio roulette: an imaginary hand spinning that “For White Performance, in comparison, practically arrives
in Technicolor, “imagined and realised” by Petralli
dashboard knob, tearing through static and
frequencies for the right fuel to drive. Denim, and Terebecki (as the credits put it) with a new
It is classic rock’n’roll impatience and a quick, playing what rhythmic grip in drummer (and frequent
co-writer) Conrad Choucroun. Rolling out of that
fitting entrance for a band and record that can’t
stand still. Everything that happens here – chunky feels like radio-play intro, Magazin is creeping, muscular
funk and slithering ’70s R&B; jangling-guitar five songs funk with heavy power chord turnarounds and a
speed pop; ’60s-garage fuzz; heavy white-blues horn section that sounds like it’s stumbling down
action; British-prog whimsy (and that’s for starters) at once a New Orleans alley at four in the morning. In the
– comes in nine songs totalling under 33 minutes. has long chorus of Double Death, Petralli’s falsetto-like
Packed with enough ideas for an album thrice vocal rides a choppy prog-fusion sequence like
as long, this new peak in White Denim’s craft, been second Curtis Mayfield leading Caravan in 1976. At one
verve and attention deficit comes at you like a nature.” point in Sky Beaming, the ’70s-prog spice is so
history of late-20th century popular music, fired strong that Petralli, in a fleeting Asian-flair guitar
in text messages. lick, summons the improbable ghost of Bill
But White Denim – founded as a trio in 2006; now bassist Nelson’s Be-Bop Deluxe.
Steve Terebecki and singer-guitarist James Petralli with a broad For White Denim, playing what feels like five songs at once has
corps of associates – come from the live music boot camp of long been second nature. The songwriting rushes by in mosaic yet
Austin, Texas where The 13th Floor inevitably coheres, as the album title assures, in execution – as
Elevators, Doug Sahm, Stevie Ray Vaughan fundamental in force and lift as a vintage Peel Session. Performance
and hardcore iconoclasts the Big Boys set is the first time, though, that White Denim – who, for a long spell,
the standards for standing tall, tight and made records in the clubhouse squeeze of Block’s 1940s caravan
wild on a club stage. In this album’s title – have used the studio as opportunity, putting meat and depth on
song, Petralli throws the word the surprises. It is also fun and refreshing to hear the band take
“performance” like a slur, summing up one good impulse and make it last: the central churn of Fine
a relationship-turned-sham (“Heart like a Slime; the way Terebecki’s pneumatic bass anchors the knotty
crack in the concrete/If only we needed the prairie-dusted boogie It Might Get Dark, which somehow evokes
same way/I suppose this is all a the Eagles and XTC without sounding bipolar.
performance”). The doubting, however, White Denim, after 12 years in the game, have delivered
BACK STORY: comes in a fiercely assured exultation of the album they always seemed too restless to make – true to
NOISY stabbing guitar and steely chorale – early their stage-lightning aesthetic, yet more than exciting setlist
NEIGHBOURS documentary. That leaves one question: What exactly are these
● Performance is the R.E.M. vocally framed by a glam-slam
first album White Denim Beach Boys. Performance is White Denim’s songs about? The lyrics, like the music, are a rapid fire of
have recorded in their most produced album, thickly textured argument, disillusion and resignation, in clipped language and
own studio in East non-sequitur outbursts smeared by the mix and velocity. “Story is
Austin, Radio Milk (after with brass, keyboards and studio
a song on Fits). “The atmospheres. Play it loud, though, and blurry, it’s got me worried,” Petralli admits in Moves On. Even the
house was built in you easily imagine the euphoria at the bar ’66 Bob Dylan might be stymied by It Might Get Dark: “You sold a
1902,” Petralli says. “It few hats after the big money bash/In a microwaved sea on a cruise
was a general store at after every track.
one point, and there's a Actually, the first time I saw the original ship for three, piling all of the cheese until it’s up to your knees.”
popular biker bar next Hey, it rhymes and it sounds cool.
door. We didn't realise
line-up of Terebecki, Petralli and drummer There is some clarity at the end. “I called but I can’t reach you/
that was a problem until Josh Block, at SXSW in 2008, they barely Wanna tell you how much I need you/Do you still need me?”
we were cutting vocals left room for anyone to clap, ripping Petralli sings in Good News, which starts like a folk-pop Paul
and acoustic guitars.
The noise was so
through their 35 minutes like a power trio McCartney ballad. But then it’s business as usual as the song
ridiculous that we’d dream of Hüsker Dü, the mid-’60s Who whizzes through ’80s synth-pop and a Nuggets-guitar break in
have to stop. That’s how and Wire’s Pink Flag. Initial records came
the motorcycle ended severely-pinched distortion to the acoustic guitar fadeaway.
up in Fine Slime. We
like flying shrapnel 7-inches and download That hand is still on the car-radio dial, spinning wildly, as
thought, Let's just get a EPs. The band’s first studio album, 2008’s White Denim race forward.
good recording of one. Exposion, was first issued as a merch-table
So Steve went out with a
CD-R, then appended as bonus material to WHITE DENIM’S MOUTHPIECE ON TINKERING, THE
AMES IVES!
Getty

microphone.” IMPORTANCE OF MACCA, AND BODY LANGUAGE.

2009’s aptly titled Fits.

84 MOJO
 F I LT E R A L B UM S

James of Paul Éluard’s poem Liberté. down from its original

Of her own meticulous songs, 10-member incarnation to a
★★★ The Ghost Of A Tomorrow six-piece for this studio debut,
Living In evokes Billie Holiday, a the band continue to plough
measure of Peyroux’s the kind of old-school, rootsy
Extraordinary Times consistent excellence. rock’n’roll that’s clearly in their
INFECTIOUS/BMG. CD/DL/LP/MC Mat Snow collective DNA. British vocalist
Madchester’s seated John Hogg brings soulful
anthem-makers stand conviction to the psychedelic
up to Trump. blues of High Water and Send
Papa M Me An Omen’s raucous stomp,
Smiths-
endorsed ★★★ Ford’s serpentine guitar lines
oddball indie A Broke Moon Rises weaving around the low-slung
on Factory, grooves of Rich Robinson in
DRAG CITY. CD/DL/LP
a baggy- a way that will be pleasingly
era unity Former Slint guitarist familiar to many. If there’s a
blockbuster with Sit Down, an David Pajo finds a sol sense that the material has yet
experimental phase alongside road out of hell. to coalesce to its strongest
Brian Eno – James ran an Imagine a life and most consistent point,
admirable gamut before their where being in there’s much that bodes well
mid-’00s hiatus. In 2016, third Zwan with Billy for High Water II, due in 2019.
reunion album Girl At The End Corgan was Paddy Wells
Of The World illuminated an not the worst
unflagging fanbase by almost thing that had
toppling Adele’s 25 from the happened to you. The all-over-
No clowning around: UK top spot. With Tim Booth the-place quality of David
White Denim’s James long since resident in LA, this Pajo’s previous album – 2016’s
Petralli gets serious. follow-up tackles polemical Highway Songs – made sense
issues Stateside: opener to anyone aware of the
Hank’s Kodo-esque wallop traumatic events that
targets “white fascists in the preceded it (which, given the

“A punkier, less White House” and the NRA,

while peacenik acoustic-
strummer Many Faces pillories
very public nature of his 2015
suicide attempt, was pretty
much everyone), but it didn’t
snarky Steely Dan.” the divisiveness of Trump’s
Mexican wall. It’s not all
make for a very coherent
listening experience. Ditching
Miles Kane
politics: Coming Home (Pt. 2) the random death metal and
James Petralli talks to David Fricke. updates Come Home’s road- techno interludes in favour of ★★★
warrior-craves-settled-family sombre but quietly affecting
Performance is the most produced album White Denim dichotomy with added guitar meditations was Coup De Grace
have ever made. Was that the plan? FaceTime, while Better Than definitely the right move, and VIRGIN EMI. CD/DL/LP

“We've always been kind of tinkerers. But we built our own That finds Booth’s experiential from stately opener The Third solo outing from
cravings undimmed at 58. So, Upright Path through the sometime Last Shadow
studio (see Back Story, p84) ahead of this record, so we were on outing 15, James remain dappled shimmer of The Puppet; Lana Del Rey guests.
able to take our time and explore the tunes. With the early urgent, and contemporary, Lighthouse Reverie to the
records, we always got this feedback – ‘You guys are so much thanks to producer Charlie tear-jerking 13-minute Arvo A rising star in 2011, seven
better live.’ Also, we produced together – Steve, Josh [Block] Andrew (Alt-J). Yet, falling Pärt finale, Spiegel Im Spiegel, years on, most of Miles Kane’s
and I – so there was always a bit of tension. Nobody was super- somewhere between Gold A Broke Moon Rises sheds a serious critical plaudits have
happy with the albums. With this one, Steve and I just decided Mother’s expansionism and gentle but persistent light arrived via his association with
to try a lot more stuff.” Wah Wah’s speculation, in the darkness. Alex Turner in The Last
Living… never quite hits that Ben Thompson Shadow Puppets. Which isn’t
How do you actually write songs? They usually end million-streaming sweet spot. entirely fair, not least because
up as blur of ideas. But what do you start with? Andrew Perry his last solo LP, 2013’s Don’t
“A few tunes start as you would with any band in a garage. Forget Who You Are, was a
Somebody’s got a riff. Somebody has another riff that they put The Magpie classy job fizzing with
Salute co-writes from the likes of
in the key of the other thing. Then we combine the ideas. I’m a Madeleine Andy Partridge, Paul Weller
huge Paul McCartney fan. Ram is a big album for me, and the ★★★
song Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – it’s like four unrelated ideas Peyroux and Ian Broudie. Written in LA
that work together. So I’ve never felt too concerned about ★★★★ High Water I with Jamie T, Coup De Grace
PROVOGUE/MASCOT. CD/DL/LP
may not radically change
writing verse-chorus-bridge tunes. I look at writing and Anthem sceptics’ perceptions of Kane
producing as making a pile, then excavating – putting too much DECCA FRANCE/UNIVERSAL. CD/LP/DL
Ex-Black Crowes reunite as Turner’s lesser-half, on first
on a track, then taking things away to see what’s right.” for high-flying debut. listen sounding like the singer
Heartache, hedonism
With three has just discovered T.Rex and
How do you and Steve decide when you’ve gone too far? stylish defiance in Pey ’s
former glitter rock. But dig deeper
“Steve is not much of a talker (laughs), so I look at his body boho dance.
members of and you’ll find Kane’s finest
language. We’re always hitting the ‘mute’ button on the console Puccini’s La The Black work so far: the twinkly,
to see if we have too much going on. It’s a gut feeling: Bohème first Crowes among Monkeys-ish ballad Killing The
‘Something isn't working here. So let’s not work on it at all.’” coughed her their ranks Joke, the lusty Some Girls
last in 1896, – Rich Robinson, Marc Ford Jagger raunch of The Wrong
How much has Conrad Choucroun, your new drummer, but her and Sven Pipien – The Magpie Side Of Life, and, topping it all,
changed the band? Does he qualify as a member now? romantic free Salute piqued plenty of Shavambacu, the best old-
“That’s a funny one. Steve and I are constantly going back and spirit still roams the banks of interest with a string of shows fashioned love song you’ll
forth: ‘Are we going to be like a punkier, less snarky Steely Dan the Seine – Piaf, Juliette Gréco last year that culminated in a hear in a while.
with different dudes on every record?’ With this one, we – and the New World, notably self-titled live album. Pared Pat Gilbert
Rickie Lee Jones and mid-’70s
started cutting with another drummer. But we cut some things Joni. Madeleine Peyroux is
with Conrad, and that was the sound we wanted. He’s from rooted in both France and
that Bernard Purdie school – groove is king – and he’s played North America, drawing more
with some heavy dudes, man: [ZZ Top’s] Billy Gibbons, Chuck on the latter for songs and
Berry. And he was with NRBQ for a few years. Conrad makes our styles, the former for an
job easy.” existential melancholy
trembling between hedonistic
Have you figured out how you’re going to play the new defiance and despair.
songs live? The album is, after all, called Performance. Peyroux’s eighth album
“We can always make up for the missing parts with raw energy. immerses us in small hours
That’s still the ethos. But we have a great keyboard player, reflection, the longing and
Michael Hunter, who joined halfway through the record. regret, the sardonic what-the-
He’s a monster who knows all the Joe Zawinul licks. And on a hell, the stillness where the
tune like Sky Beaming, where the guitar part changes in every tiniest detail reverberates.
bar, instead of trying to recreate that stack of instruments, Produced and co-written by
her regular collaborator Larry Lunar tunes:
we’ll change the part to imply that all of that stuff is Klein, Anthem’s apogee is that
happening. (Laughs) It’s a lot of practice. But hopefully it Papa M’s David
title song, Leonard Cohen’s Pajo looks on
will have the same power.” masterpiece heartbreakingly the bright side.
sung, as is a beautiful setting

86 MOJO
 Preparing to test
their limits: Interpol
(from left) Sam
Fogarino, Paul Banks
and Daniel Kessler.

could even do with a spot of

Soft power
New York veterans go on seem like an
rebuttoning.
Yet despite the odd flush of
colour in Marauder’s cheeks, the
trio haven’t strayed far from the
evolutionary emotional territory they have spent
a careful rampage with sixth adaptation too so long staking out: unease,
album. By Victoria Segal. far: Interpol dissatisfaction, alienation, the trials
aren’t natural of meaningful connection. Paul
Interpol cosmic hitch- Banks’s choked vocals have always
★★★★ hikers; it’s hard
to imagine them swapping their innate noir-
acted as a protective knot, a valve
against these songs leaking too much raw
Marauder ish elegance for Perspex bubbles and furry emotion, and that’s still the case on the
MATADOR. CD/DL/LP animal costumes any time soon. Yet scrappy intensity of The Rover, or NYSMAW
Fridmann’s presence on Marauder, the band’s (Now You’ve Seen Me At Work), that title
WHEN A BAND works with the kind of second release since the departure leading into the crushing last line: “Are you
tight palette that Interpol most famously use of bassist/keyboardist Carlos Dengler after excited, dear?” It Probably Matters is
– black, grey, a flash of bright white or dark 2010’s stark self-titled fourth album, has particularly lacerating, pegging out its self-
red – it’s difficult to walk the line between clearly loosened a couple of collars. It feels loathing (“I didn’t have the grace or the
the addition of light and shade and the like it’s untwisted the vertebrae of If You brains/It probably matters”) across a stately
dilution of something essential. Sixteen years Really Love Nothing, a song that starts out martial beat for all to see, elevating it to new
after the release of their elementally moody like stadium-era R.E.M. (Turn You Inside- levels of grandeur. Number 10 begins with a
debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, Interpol Out, specifically) or Mountain Child’s covert similar expansiveness, before drawing the
have been remarkably successful in finding cosmic reel. The toxic hedonism of Party’s strings of clammy paranoia tight again.
ways to modify their sound, pinching and Over (“I like to show you my stuff/Baby Nobody would want Interpol to go for a
folding the edges of their sharply drawn songs cheetahs, the Himalayas”) has its reverie complete root-and-branch overhaul, though,
to allow them to become surprisingly sturdy upturned by disruptive drums, while two least of all Interpol. They know their limits,
Jamie James Medina

veterans of New York’s millennial rock blip. ominous instrumental interludes seem and while they are prepared to test them,
Handing over the production reins to designed to open out the walls, show that gently, Marauder isn’t in the market for
Mercury Rev/Flaming Lips associate Dave wide spaces can be just as unnerving as dark revelation. With songs this subtle and steely,
Fridmann for Marauder might, on paper, corners. The swampy grind Stay In Touch though, reinforcement is good enough.

MOJO 87
 F I LT E R A L B UM S about At Weddings. While she doesn’t write
the wordy confessionals often beloved by
Oberst and associates, these songs are still, at
first, hard to catch. Produced by Arcade Fire
associate Owen Pallett, At Weddings initially
feels almost formless, a fog of piano, guitar
and Tomberlin’s uncontaminated rain-water
voice, one that demands you lean in as close
as you would for Vernon, or Vashti Bunyan, or
Low’s Mimi Parker. There are vestigial churchy
traces in the hush, the visionary tremble, the
meditative pacing, but there’s no blazing
conviction, no underpinning faith here. These
Sarah Beth songs are on their own. “Got a book off the
Tomberlin: shelf today/It’s going to tell me what I should
compelling say,” she sings on Any Other Way, unsure of
presence.
the way forward, of how to be heard.
The music dips in and out, too:
Untitled 2 is little more than a ghostly
roar, a black-and-white photographic
smudge, but love song You Are Here is a
sudden little rapture that gathers speed
before dying out, the connection strong.
The patches of clarity can be disturbing:

Ring of truth Self-Help begins with the words

“electrocuted in the bathtub” and inter-
mittently features a rising, panicked squall,
Debut from Kentucky-based her youth moving from place to place, a something anxious beating against the glassy
singer-songwriter demands home-schooler preserved from secular music. surface. In atmosphere and background noise,
The first records she laid her hands on were At Weddings is reminiscent of P.J. Harvey’s
commitment. By Victorial Segal. by Dashboard Confessional and, significantly, White Chalk and Smog’s Red Apple Falls, two
Tomberlin Bright Eyes, artefacts she hid from her other records that struggle to separate their
parents in case they triggered more inner worlds from the one in front of them,
★★★★ discussions about God. Later, with her faith unusual outcrops in their creators’ back
At Weddings evaporating, she dropped out of her Christian catalogues, springing up in isolation.
SADDLE CREEK. CD/DL/LP
college, returned home and drifted through a At Weddings quickly coalesces into an
period of loneliness, uncertainty and service- utterly compelling presence, the sound of
NOT SINCE Justin Vernon crept from the industry work. Writing these songs helped somebody tuning into their emotional
Wisconsin woods with a bundle of deer meat, push through the boredom and unsteadiness wireless, trying to pick up the signals that
a post-viral pallor and the songs of his debut – and would ultimately see her signed to really matter. The title might cast Tomberlin
album For Emma, Forever Ago has an artist Omaha’s Saddle Creek, the label run by as an eternal guest, somebody who stays
emerged with a back-story that seems such a Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. pressed against the walls, watching, waiting.
perfect match for their songs. Daughter of a If it sounds like a pleasing bit of circle- With songs as beautiful and haunting as this,
Baptist pastor, Sarah Beth Tomberlin spent closing, however, there is nothing neat or tidy though, the margins won’t hold her for long.

but pertinent take on Patti Pudding by tapping into the character, but there’s a sharper line-up of The Stooges,
Smith’s People Have The Power, cosmic drones, using loops, focus to the writing – and Williamson cut 2013’s Ready
while Nick Lowe’s (What’s So synths, amplifier hum, vocal more sweeping melodies. To Die with Iggy, putting in a
Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love And FX, and a beatbox rarely Perhaps their newish addition, spirited showing amid some of
Understanding gets a programmed beyond basic moonlighting King Crimson his vocal spar’s weakest lyrics,
straighter rock treatment – it’s ‘thump’ and ‘chain-gang’ drummer Gavin Harrison, has then followed up with an
never quite the gospel shout- settings. From the all- fired them up. The songs here uneven, multicollaborative
out it promised. Lately much enshrouding murk arise tackle the break-up of stab at unrecorded Stooges
covered and sampled, at 78 many exceptional moments, relationships and feeling tunes, Re-Licked. Now, Behind
Staton is indeed unstoppable. including two unusually disconnected in the modern The Shade feels like an attempt
Geoff Brown tender declarations of love, world, but vocalist Bruce Soord at a definitive twilight-years
ominous My Shadow Life and has always sounded like a man record. When it opens with the
keening Scarlett, while the rippingly Stoogean Riot On
staring wistfully out of a window
Candi Staton Mark Lanegan & whistling coda to Lonesome while his partner packs their
The Strip, with ‘Straight’ James
himself riffin’ way up in the red
Infidel evokes Robert Mitchum
★★★ Duke Garwood in Night Of The Hunter. Both
bags. Nevertheless, Try As I
Might and Far Below outshine
zone, the augurs are positive.
Unstoppable parties in this collaboration have From there, Behind The Shade
BERACAH/THIRTY TIGERS. CD/DL
★★★★ been firing off great records at
anything on their predecessor,
2016’s Your Wilderness. The epic
heads for an FM-appeasing
With Animals will lately: here’s another. Springsteen aesthetic: on
Young heart still running White Mist, though, generously Judith Christ, male vocalist
HEAVENLY. CD/DL/LP Andrew Perry allows Soord 11:06 minutes to
free, Staton gets her Frank Meyer, hired from
message across. Darkly-hued Anglo- examine where it all went Cheetah Chrome’s Streetwalkin’
Reunited with producer Mark American partnership s wrong, as the band indulge Cheetahs, brings an unruly
Nevers, whose work on His further forbidden frui The Pineapple their inner ’70s prog rocker. yowl, but with the less
Mark Blake auspicious intrusions of Petra
Hands (2006) and Who’s “Free me!” Thief Haden’s ’80s rock emoting,
Hurting Now (’09) reintroduced intones
the soul-turned-disco-turned- Lanegan at the ★★★ and Meyer’s clichéd whiskey-
waffle, it’s harder to discern
gospel singer to the wider 21st outset of this Dissolution James where Williamson’s heart lies.
century market, Staton’s second
Unstoppable hits hard from the Garwood
K SCOPE. CD/DL/LP
Williamson And Andrew Perry
Prog rock-inclined me
start as her own, strutting team-up: bound up in the
Yeovil’s 12th studio se
The Pink Hearts
Confidence establishes a, well, grunge-era giant’s forbidding
★★★
Philip Cosores, Elizaveta Porodina

confident agenda. Picked up presence is an increasing At this stage in

on funky fourth track It Ain’t sense of him kicking against a near 20-year Behind The Shade
Over, her manifesto for social/ the cage bars of straight- career, The PROPER. CD/LP
political evolution is enforced forward guitar/bass/drums Pineapple
by subsequent originals, such Iggy Pop’s idea of The Devil
music. Where last year’s Thief have
as powerful ballad Revolution teases with Raw Power-era
Gargoyle synthscaped his settled on a
Of Change, or the funkier, blues- tinged songcraft, guitar ferocity.
sound – essentially, furrow-
more simplistic Stand Up. here he and south Londoner browed art rock with sweeping After retiring from a mid-life
Among several covers, she Garwood follow on from melodies – and are sticking to career in California’s Silicon
brings the funk to an edited 2013’s folk/blues-pickin’ Black it. Dissolution doesn’t break Valley to reactivate the final

88 MOJO
 hippy spiritual”. Which is fair throughout; Louris and
enough. As with predecessors company have created a
Rain Plans (2013) and Silver soothing balm for overly
Season (2015), Nash deals in neurotic and trying times.
a kind of lavish, ecstatic folk Jeff Tamarkin
rock, this time further
embellished with horns and
multitracked Beach Boys
harmonies: Sweet Springs, Judy Dyble
in particular, suggests I’m ★★★★
Waiting For The Day
reimagined for the Topanga
Earth Is Sleeping
ACID JAZZ. CD/DL/LP
Canyon set. The blend of
Amanda Shires lushness and rusticity is Original Fairport Conv n
beguiling, and there’s a vocalist follows 2017’s
★★★★ directness this time that resurgent Summer Da .
To The Sunset promises a breakthrough akin Once upon a
SILVER KNIFE. CD/DL/LP to that of Nash collaborators time there was
Latest from in-demand Midlake circa The Trials Of Van a dustbin of
singer/songwriter/violinist Occupanther. Still, for all its history and
is more rock than roots. accomplished loveliness, anyone
there’s also a suggestion that consigned to
Amanda Shires made her Nash’s sense of wonder is a
name in Americana circles it rarely got out again. Now,
little less wild-eyed than it thanks in part to the internet
through consistent touring once was, a suspicion
and recording, on her own and and magazines like this one,
alongside John Prine, Jason
compounded by The Widow’s musicians and singers thought Greg Russell &
ornate finale drifting into the
Isbell (her now husband) and territory of Jeff Lynne’s The
lost to obscurity’s binmen Ciaran Algar
are thriving. One such unlost
others. On this seventh album,
Shire’s characters are all too
Diary Of Horace Wimp. talent is Judy Dyble, ousted ★★★★
John Mulvey from Fairport Convention in Utopia And Wasteland
aware that anything could
change in an instant. In 1968 to make room for Sandy ROOTBEAT. CD/DL
Parking Lot Pirouette, it’s Denny. She made the odd
Golden boys of Brit-folk flex
spinning around for another The Jayhawks fitful return, but nothing
seemingly stuck. But now
songwriting muscles to powerful effect.
look at a potential lover. Just
42 seconds in, she soars ★★★ she is very much back with a SINCE WINNING the 2013 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, the
unexpectedly on the chorus, Back Roads And gorgeous set of pin-sharp folk Sheffield/Manchester-based duo have presented themselves
pop songs, all delivered in a as inheritors of the hallowed tradition of Carthy/Swarbrick,
suggesting surprises lie ahead. Abandoned Motels voice so clear it makes Moira the Dransfields and Spiers & Boden. They wear their influences
Break Out The Champagne LEGACY. CD/DL/LP
takes a 1999-ish approach. Stuart sound like Shane proudly, and none lessen the vigour of their delivery, the
A partner’s leaving; a plane A calming collection o y MacGowan. From the narcotic sensitivity of their playing, or the new potency in their song-
is crashing; it’s the very Louris co-writes on th blankness of She Now Owns writing. This shift in emphasis from traditional music to
apocalypse. “Let’s get country stalwarts’ ten A Heart Of Stone to the contemporary song is vindicated, especially when Russell’s
on with the shit show,” she If The melancholy observation of full-blooded vocals are tempered by Algar’s beautiful, measured
laughs with brash fatalism. Jayhawks’ Faded Elvis, this is a collection fiddle work. Tackling charged subjects, from the Grenfell disaster
She closes with Wasn’t I Paying 10th studio of dreaming songs from an (We Are Leaving) to the life of black soccer player-turned-war
Attention, a devastating story set – and first aptly-named record which is hero Walter Tull (Walter) – interspersed with a glorious cover of
about someone who missed for Legacy – itself far from drowsy. Put it Stan Rogers’ Lock Keeper, blazing instrumentals and compelling
all the signs of a friend’s feels patched under your pillow and take it conviction – it offers a provocative snapshot of modern life.
downward spiral. Like the together, that’s because it was to your heart.
character, we should’ve seen designed that way. Only two David Quantick ALSO RELEASED
this one coming. And still it’s of its tracks were penned
a gut punch. solely by frontman Gary
Chris Nelson Lucy Ward Bryony Griffith
Louris; the others are all
co-writes or covers, some
The Proclaimers ★★★ ★★★★
originally conceived for ★★★★ Pretty Warnings Hover
Israel Nash previous Louris side projects, Angry Cyclist BETTY BEETROOT. CD/DL SELWYN. CD/DL
including three written with COOKING VINYL. CD/DL/LP
★★★ the Dixie Chicks and one with
Miffed pedal-pusher a
Far from the relative
sophistication of her
Sometimes, a
humble solo fiddler
Lifted Jakob Dylan. If Back Roads
metaphor for era mar y last album, I Dreamt is all you need.
LOOSE. CD/DL/LP And Abandoned Motels is The I Was A Bird, Lucy One of The Demon
Jayhawks playing catch-up, red-mist rages.
Ward now presents Barbers, Bryony
Texan folk rock visiona though, it’s nonetheless as In this fickle, a stark, minimalist approach on a Griffith’s “traditional tunes for an
shoots for his persona solid on a song-for-song basis volatile world, largely piano-dominated fourth. English fiddle player” is sublime.
Sounds. as anything they’ve released how wonderful The impact isn’t immediate, but From the opening morris tune,
A man unafraid in the 2000s. Those Dixie to re-embrace her own Silver Morning is subtly Constant Billy, through a broad
of cosmic Chicks co-writes are the stalwart weighted while bigger arrange- gamut of hornpipes and jigs, her
Americana particularly effervescent, as songwriting ments kick in to memorable touch and tone is almost an
tags and are tracks like Long Time Ago gifts of Craig and Charlie Reid. effect on Cold Caller and Maria affirmation of time-honoured
“Old prejudice hasn’t gone/ Martin. But nothing beats her values of folk music; while Ian
Neil Young (with Tonic’s Emerson Hart)
New energy drives it on”, they restrained, understated delivery Stephenson’s guitar and bass
comparisons, and the wispy Bird Never Lies of the great ballad Bill Norrie.
Austin’s Israel Nash has (Ari Hest). In fact, there’s a warn on Angry Cyclist, and additions keep it contemporary.
branded his fifth album “a new considered lack of intensity elsewhere on album number
11, the twins’ carefully
Fairport Hannah Sanders
marshalled mix of dry wit, Convention & Ben Savage
social comment and largesse ★★★ ★★★
reconciles us with the version
of ourselves we like best. With
What We Did On Our Awake
its Everlys-style harmonies, Saturday PROPER. CD/DL
heart-tugging epic Streets Of MATTY GROVES. CD/DL Dreamy reveries,
Edinburgh is a thoroughfare Another Fairports softly warm vocals,
classic to rival those of Messrs anniversary album stirring guitar
Rafferty and McTell, while – you can do that arrangements and
Classy playfully dissects when you’re an decent material –
institution. With a notably a lovely version of one of
Britain’s class system via white
sleeve parodying 1967’s What We Billy Bragg’s best Woody Guthrie
Rastas, sausage suppers and songs, Way Over Yonder In The
Did On Our Holidays, 25 live tracks
a lovely nursery rhyme Minor Key – Sanders & Savage
from last year’s Cropredy Fest –
melody. It’s always good including many of the hits – and wield an elusive sort of magic.
when, after 30 years as a music an extended line-up featuring Sanders’ vocals and Savage’s
critic, the hairs on your arms Richard Thompson, Judy Dyble, dobro are the focal points, but
stand on end, as mine did Iain Matthews, Chris While, Ralph they shake it up too, inventively
Amanda Shires: listening to Then It Comes To McTell and Ashley Hutchings, tackling English trad (Reynardine),
we should’ve Me. That’s the kind of reaction goodwill and an indestructible while the ir dip into Americana
seen her coming. than can’t be faked. spirit stretch a long way. on Santa Fe Trail is a highlight. CI
James McNair

MOJO 89
 F I LT E R A L B UM S

The Coral message: forget notions of

authenticity and just enjoy
Michael Nau
★★★ the ride. ★★★
Move Through Jenny Bulley Michael Nau
The Dawn & The Mighty Thread
IGNITION. CD/DL/LP FULL TIME HOBBY. CD/DL/LP
Cherished Wirral wizards Death Cab Amiable classic-pop fr
make stylistic volte-face. For Cutie Natalie Prass collabor
“I used to think of Merseybeat
as a swear word but I like it
★★★ Frontman
for fondly
now”, says The Coral’s Nick Thank You For Today remembered,
Power. The band mothballed ATLANTIC. CD/DL/LP Maryland
Anna Calvi a whole album’s worth of Kelley Stoltz Seattle-based indie ve ns indie-poppers
★★★★ gnarly psychedelia à la 2016’s ★★★★ struggle with mindful Cotton Jones,
Distance Inbetween before on ninth album. Michael Lau’s been solo for
Hunter writing Move Through The
Natural Causes three albums now, mining a
DOMINO. CD/DL/LP BANANA & LOUIE. CD/LP If there isn’t a
Dawn, a shamelessly melodic seam of affectionate, dog-
Death Cab For
Calvi’s taking no prisoners set of tidy three-minute pop Contact gloom shrouds eared, effortlessly classicist
Cutie adult
on third and best album yet. songs part-inspired by the tenth LP by San Francisco- pop that’s never not likable.
colouring book
As A Man, Don’t Beat The Girl time warp playlists beloved of based Bunnymen guitarist. And while …& The Mighty
to tie in with
Out Of My Boy, Alpha – the fairgrounds at New Brighton Kelley Stoltz’s ability to absorb Thread doesn’t quite maintain
Thank You For
song titles on Hunter scan on the Wirral peninsula. With then reappropriate generic velocity throughout its 11
Today, Ben Gibbard and band
as a cri de coeur of gender echoes of Del Shannon, The sounds and systems is the tracks, when it strikes gold
have missed a trick. It’s no
expression and expectations. Doors and Phil Spector’s musical equivalent of reciting it’s precious. Possessed of
surprise that their follow-up
Calvi has been working albums with the Ramones the phone book or counting a melodic growl, like Jeff
to 2015’s Kintsugi should be on
towards transparency with and Dion, it pays enjoyable cards at poker. A gift, but Tweedy minus the angst, he
the wistful side, but there’s a
each album; likewise her homage via swooning opener definitely strange. His perfect shines on the unabashedly
definite sense that everyone
enthralment to rock tradition, Eyes Like Pearls, skiffle-ish ear for the vitamin D-deficient romantic What’s A Loon, Brill
oddity Eyes Of The Moon and in these songs is having real Building-esque ditty When,
culminating in these vast, sound of ’80s British indie got trouble living in the present.
swooning arrangements, the elastic powerpopper Reaching him the auxiliary guitarist gig and the grand Less Than
Out For A Friend, but quality Even when they are in the Positive, its Phil Spector-on-
mood dark and close like a with Echo & The Bunnymen, moment – as on devastating
thunderstorm. Bowie’s occasionally flags (Undercover and makes this album’s a-shoestring production
Of The Night; Stormbreaker) closer 60 & Punk – it’s the evoking the timelessness
melodrama Lady Grinning chiming, Felt-like title track
on 11 songs thematically wrong one. The U-Haul of Marlon Williams’ recent
Soul (which Calvi has covered) or Where You Will, a hybrid of
is mirrored throughout, from linked by a search for reality in malaise of You Moved Away Make Way For Love, if not quite
Love’s Orange Skies and The
the flamenco frills ushering in an increasingly virtual world. Smiths, feel fondly familiar. – Pet Shop Boys at a yard its potently broken heart.
Swimming Pool to As A Man’s James McNair Fun to decode, but unnerving sale – zeroes in on security Nau’s adept handle on
vocal aerobics. Calvi runs the too, like seeing a TV actor in deposits and friends who lachrymose soft-rock,
gamut from crooning (Away the street and thinking you feel “irrationally betrayed” meanwhile, means even
is the most becalmed) to know them. Perhaps it’s the by somebody leaving town, when treading water, the
wailing (Don’t Beat The Girl… company he keeps, but this a companion piece to Yoko album charms with its soft-
is especially cathartic), but album feels more arch than Ono-sampling gentrification focus ambience.
it’s not just about the voice. his sunnier psych-pop lament Gold Rush. Despite the Stevie Chick
On Indies Or Paradise, she’s experiments. Wearing its rootlessness, the floating, the
an FX-pedal guitar god/dess sunglasses indoors, the clutching at ghosts, though,
emitting “waves of desire”, oscillating, gothy How these songs are solid, their
a soaring, feverish Psychedelic Of You takes aim alt-rock course through an Orions Belte
conflagration of sense
and sensuality.
at those psych-heads with
“a doctoral thesis on every
uncertain world as steady as
the day is long.
★★★★
Martin Aston record Jandek did”. The Victoria Segal Mint
JANSEN. CD/DL/LP
Norwegian newcomers run
the gamut.
Glenn Jones Glenn Jones:
this one’s for the Rarely do
★★★★ pigeons out there. Afro-rock,
kosmische
The Giant Who Ate musik,
psychedelic
Himself And Other soul and dub
effects comfortably share the
New Works For 6 same sonic space. On their
inventive debut, Orions Belte
& 12 String Guitar boldly blend those distinct
THRILL JOCKEY. CD/DL/LP
elements to present a
startlingly novel sound.
Another lovely set of internal Recorded predominantly at
guitar monologues from the Bergen Kjøtt (a creative
former Cul De Sac mainstay. complex on Norway’s south-
western coast) it’s spiralling
Far from being subject to the law of effects, playful compositions,
diminishing returns, Glenn Jones’s nuanced arrangements and
dependable grooves are
repeated trips to the well wrought with feeling. There’s
of John Fahey’s American a clear admiration for
Primitive legacy seem to Tishoumaren music, ’60s R&B,
and a production process that
yield ever more preserves subtle flaws: rattling
refreshing results. As of snare wires, amplifier hum
always, these 10 songs and surges of bass energy, key
spiral out from the most to the rugged aesthetic.
Atlantic Surfing – a beautifully
everyday starting points executed homage to motorik
of late middle-age – beats and cosmic soundscapes
being a grinch about nstrumental found sound miasma, and – draws from the icy seas
overlooked by the studios,
Christmas, getting upset extrapolations of The Sunken Amusement Park is while Picturephone Blues
about the extinction of passenger universal healing power. River In the most captivating elegy you’ll threads pentatonic licks
pigeons, going to see a nutty old The Sky resolves Jones’s fondness ever hear to East Coast tourist through a dubwise fabric.
record collector, watching the 2016 for New Jersey room ambience and attractions submerged by Each track exudes character.
Though fresh-faced, this
US presidential election results in a Fahey’s penchant for industrial Hurricane Sandy. group sound like well-
state of disbelief – into zen clanking into an especially celestial Ben Thompson travelled veterans.
Joshua French

90 MOJO
 JAZZ
B Y A N D Y C O WA N
Arp more dynamic approach,
abetted by yearning
Matty
★★★★ orchestrations and the Shards ★★★
Zebra choir, who featured on label- Déjàvu
MEXICAN SUMMER. CD/DL/LP mate Nils Frahm’s recent All MATTY UNLIMITED. CD/DL/LP
Melody opus. Thus, the bell-
Warm, trippy, psych-ja like vibes flourishes of Eye-opening solo debut
kosmische brew from s Mountain Deer are augmented from BADBADNOTGOOD
Georgopoulos. by updrafts of aching keyboard maestro.
In a career woodwind and viola, while Genre-
that has the initially wistful Misty straddling
spanned over Avalanche turns numinous as collaborations
a decade and massed vocals seep in. Even with Tyler
a half, Alexis when Fujita dials down the The Creator,
Georgopoulos’ arrangements, as on the solo Ghostface
music as Arp appears to float étude Fog or the Eno-esque Killah and Kendrick Lamar
serenely past. A sweet, herbal title track, there’s an agreeable have proved BADBADNOTGOOD
fug hanging over proceedings, robustness to proceedings. are a far from typical modern
Zebra joins the dots between David Sheppard jazz concern. The Toronto
blissed-out Balearica, trippy quartet’s keyboardist reveals
kosmische, Eastern and Afro even further hidden depths
vibes and spacey jazz. Nzuku here. Accompanied by BBNG
chimes with the kind of spiky rhythm section Chester
gamelan percussion that so Hansen and Alex Sowinski, he
enchanted Terry Riley and La wrests them away from
Tenderlonious
Monte Young. Underpinned by
an intense shuffling rhythm,
smooth proficiency and jazzy ★★★★
accents for mournful ethereal The Shakedown
Folding Water throbs like
pop with an explicit West 22A. CD/DL/LP
organic, experimental house
Coast twist, his plaintive
music. While Zebra’s centre- UK jazz renaissance leading light
falsetto paying Beach Boys
piece is Reading A Wave, makes solo debut alongside the 22archestra.
summoning the spirit of homage amid droopy synth
Ornette Coleman in a nine- hooks and controlled AFTER TWO albums showcasing his self-taught sax chops with
minute mystic jazz odyssey of Garcia Peoples dynamics on Embarrassed and Ruby Rushton, Woking jazz everyman Ed Cawthorne lets loose
Clear. Suffused with ideas and his flute-wielding alter ego on a set snappily laid down during
percussive daubs, synth trills ★★★★ sonic filigree, Déjàvu also one eight-hour session. Groove is the heart of the Tenderlonious
and elegant sax. Employing
tape loop techniques, Fender
Cosmic Cash showcases his burgeoning sound, the clattering percussive core supplied by Yussef Dayes,
Rhodes, analogue synths and BEYOND BEYOND IS BEYOND. CD/DL/LP orchestral skills; beautifully Jeen Bassa, Reggie Omas and Konrad allowing their leader to
smoky brass, Georgopoulos Good vibes and bracing jams restrained builds that sit unleash spiritual flurries and wilding synthesizer bends at will
gives himself freedom to from Jerry’s latest heirs. somewhere between prime (notably on the flighty, unabashed, Roy Ayers-ish Maria).
wander on Zebra, but never Van Dyke Parks and arch Meshing ‘60s East Coast jazz with hip-hop and Latin rhythms,
The jam band scene, there’s bubbly delights in the neck-snapping double bass of
aimlessly. dominated by Phish and their sample conniver Jonti amid
Stephen Worthy Verocai’s vertiginous melody Yusef’s Groove and Dilla-nodding SV Disco, with Cawthorne’s
kin, remains one of the most fluttering Max Cilla-like flurries always upping the ante. And yet
commercially potent yet or the title track’s organic yet
for all The Shakedown’s merits, its creators seem to be coolly
critically marginalised areas otherworldly Neu! kosmische.
playing within themselves, a mere whisker away from realising
It’s sharp, natty stuff from a
Masayoshi of American music. Of late,
man to watch.
their full potential.
though, a cluster of
Fujita underground bands – among Andy Cowan
★★★ them One Eleven Heavy and ALSO RELEASED
Wet Tuna, alongside more
Book Of Life established heads like Howlin
ERASED TAPES. CD/DL/LP
Rain – have begun restoring
Shemekia Beats & Pieces Slowly Rolling
Third solo outing for Berlin- credibility to the sort of Copeland Big Band Camera
based Japanese ambient
vibraphonist.
freestyle Americana patented
by the Grateful Dead. New
★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★
Jersey’s youthful Garcia America’s Child Ten Juniper
An instrument ALLIGATOR. CD/DL
still most Peoples might be the best EFPI. CD+DVD EDITION. CD/DL/LP

readily of the bunch, powered by Will Kimbrough-produ Ben Cottrell’s This Cardiff trio
associated euphoric twin guitar action: Nashville-recorded se o 14-strong conjure swirling
harmonising like the Allmans 2015’s Outskirts Of Lov Manchester outfit soundscapes that
with cool jazz
on Hangin’ On; snaking like evoke Loose Tubes drift almost
and ’50s There’s no and Snarky Puppy imperceptibly into
exotica, in the right hands the the Dead’s China Cat faulting
Sunflower through Show Your but excel at futuristic questing: focus. An atmospheric balance
vibraphone is a thing of subtle Shemekia refreshing intricate exploratory of light and shade, the elegiac
versatility, capable of the kind Troubles Out. But most of the Copeland’s jams from 2012’s Big Ideas and Eight Days takes a few minutes
of organic nuance generally songs on Cosmic Cash clock in voice. It’s rich, 2015’s All In with live risk-taking to warm up before its bleeding,
absent on other instruments at under four minutes, with soulful, a little that lets individual accents shine. Coltrane-esque sax impacts,
struck with mallets. The melodies as strong as the like Mavis Staples at times, and Be it riffing off Nois’s jagged while the title track’s shivery
undoubtedly dexterous improvisations, and even a totally commanding on her guitar, Broken’s mournful tenor climax cuts through like a knife.
Masayoshi Fujita’s previous 13-minute Suite barrels in at cover of The Kinks’ I’m Not Like or floor-shaking fanfare Hendo’s Fans of GoGo Penguin and
albums, with their pellucid near-hardcore choogle. The crazed soprano, Ten is spine- Cinematic Orchestra will find
Everybody Else, which is
evocations of nature, have vocals can be a bit frayed, but tinglingly good. Juniper a powerful tonic.
successfully re-imagined as
sometimes erred toward new that never really held back the
raw Chicago blues on this,
age banality, but on Book Of Dead either, did it?
her ninth album. Elsewhere
Kiefer Khalab
Life he adopts a marginally John Mulvey ★★★ ★★★★
the singer, who is bluesman
Johnny Clyde Copeland’s Happysad Black Noise 2084
Shemekia daughter, stamps her STONES THROW. CD/DL/LP ON THE CORNER. CD/DL/LP
Copeland: no authority on her father’s When playing in There’s no faulting
time for hate. Promised Myself. In her Mndsgn’s live trio or the ambition
hands, it’s a Stax-styled stirrer sessioning for behind this Italian
featuring the M.G.’s’ Steve Kaytranada and Afro-electro DJ/
Cropper on guitar. Other Anderson .Paak, producer’s genre-
guests include Rhiannon Kiefer blends in seamlessly with vaulting debut: an attempt to
Giddens, who adds African his surroundings. Although the reconcile loops and shamanic
banjo to the countryish LA pianist’s second LP almost chants lifted from ancient field
shares its title with Tim Buckley’s recordings with raw electronics
Smoked Ham And Peaches,
jazziest odyssey, the fractured and jazz. While Tenesha The
while Emmylou Harris sings electronics of his homespun- Wordsmith waxes poetic on the
backing on Ain’t Got Time For sounding dispatches give way title track, it’s rhythmic cameos
Hate, her cogent mother-to- to freewheeling keys that smack from Tommaso Cappellato and
son state of the nation lightly of Thelonious Monk, Moses Boyd, plus the fire-
address, and John Prine duets Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans. breathing saxophones of Tamar
Mike White

on his own Great Rain, a Add an underlying hip-hop bent Osborn and Shabaka Hutchings,
passionate folk rocker. and Kiefer has real swagger. that raise it to a higher plane. AC
Lois Wilson

MOJO 91
 F I LT E R Mitski
★★★★
Mitski: “Don’t
look behind Be The Cowboy
the curtain!” DEAD OCEANS. CD/DL/LP

Japanese-American multi-
nstrumentalist delivers heart-
wrenching fifth album.
Be The Cowboy opens with Geyser, in
which the singer wonders whether the
emotional pressure inside will spew
forth. The rest catalogues second-
guesses, regrets and swallowed desires
that, accumulated, might just erupt. Oh Sees
Time and again, the characters in ★★★
these 14 indie-pop tracks come up Smote Reverser
short in trusting themselves. “I’ll take CASTLE FACE. CD/DL/LP
anything you want to give me,” one Whether recording as Oh
sings in Old Friend, about an Sees, OCS, Thee Oh Sees or
ex-couple without the courage to TBD, John Dwyer’s all in.
truly call it quits. On Me And My While you’re waiting for John
Dwyer’s free jazz opus – surely
Husband, a woman claims “At least in it’s coming, after handfuls of
this lifetime, we’re sticking together,” garage releases, psychedelic
as if she might welcome the albums and last year’s folky
Memory Of A Cut Off Head –
decoupling that death would bring. busy yourself with the proudly
Disco hi-hats and guitars turn the progressive Smote Reverser.
title Nobody into a sing-along chorus Occasionally, the album
that, perhaps unfortunately, doesn’t threatens to go Spinal Tap-ish,
while the prominence of
really attempt to wring power from Tomas Dolas’s beefy organ
the rejection. If at times things veer suggests weekly meetings of
toward needy, the sum of the set is the Deep Purple Appreciation
Society. But when Dwyer
saved by how real it all feels. steeps the prog in garage
Chris Nelson frenzy, the pot boils. On
Sentient Oona, the twin
percussion of Dan Rincon and
Nat Birchall The Fernweh Paul Quattrone bubbles under
the surface, the organ blasting
Meets Al ★★★★ through fissures; by song’s
Breadwinner The Fernweh end, everything’s melted. The
12-minute centrepiece
★★★★ SKELETON KEY. CD/DL/LP
Anthemic Aggressor features
Sounds Almighty Kaleidoscopic folk from Dwyer’s guitar crackling as
Liverpool three-piece issued chaotic and insistent as an
TRADITION. DL/LP
on The Coral’s label. insect drawn to the lamp that
Lancashire saxophonist will zap it. It’s a bullseye.
The Fernweh gravitated
unites with dub maestro. Chris Nelson
together because of their love
The righteous vibe of Nat of British folk and Basil Kirchin,
Birchall’s jazz recordings has and these influences weave
always hinted at a love and Giant Sand throughout their self-titled Hilang Child Laurel
understanding of roots music, debut. Songs become worlds
but nothing could have ★★★★ within worlds, as haunting
★★★ ★★★
predicted the rich, joyful Returns To melodies, looped sounds and Years Dogviolet
sounds on this LP. Recorded Valley Of Rain strange instrumentation BELLA UNION. CD/DL/LP
COUNTER. CD/DL/LP
with young analogue reggae create evocative soundscapes
FIRE. CD/LP Unexpectedly pop-slanted
producer Al ‘Breadwinner’ and Proustian reverie while East London-based sin
Howe Gelb decides to end it London-based singer-
Redfern and 69-year-old lyrically exploring the beauty songwriter with a sim t
where he started. songwriter’s debut.
Jamaican trombone player Vin and brutality of Britishness. ambitious debut.
Gordon (AKA Don Drummond Although Giant Sand’s debut “Swing me on the gallows in Former Cocteau Twin and
Bella Union label boss Simon With her
Junior), Sounds Almighty is a Valley Of Rain originally this grey and Godless land,” distinctive
tribute to the Jamaican appeared in 1985, it was Ned Crowther sings on The Raymonde’s current band
Lost Horizons have become vintage guitar
Golden Age of the 1970s, recorded two years earlier Liar over an intricate tapestry and rich,
engineers such as Lee Perry, when punk was still in the rear of glistening guitars, whirring an incubator. Ed Riman, who
records as Hilang Child, is one bluesy vocals,
and King Tubby working with view mirror of those who synths and vocal harmonies. Laurel Arnell-
horn maestros such as Tommy would eventually disappear of their singers, and his first
New Brighton Sigh is steeped Cullen has steadily built a
McCook and Roland Alphonso. down country’s highway. As solo album is unlike anything
in wistful nostalgia, mapping following since 2013, releasing
Playing Birchall-composed else issued by the imprint.
Howe Gelb retires the band, emotional distance with a few compelling singles and
horn lines over guitar, organ, Although the Indonesian-
possibly forever, he’s decided weeping violins as Crowther EPs. This, her first full-length
piano, percussion and Welsh singer-songwriter has
to revisit an album whose admits, “sentimental fool, album, was recorded in her
Birchall’s bass, Gordon and recorded before, Years allows
guitar sound he was always thinks he still loves you”. bedroom and fed through
trumpeter David Fulwood him to stretch out on what
uncomfortable with, reuniting Dressing Up Box and Is This proves to be a modern pop reel-to-reel tape recorders in
create a wide, echoing space most of the original musicians Man Bothering You? provide an analogue studio. She sings
album. Oh We’re Getting Along
of analogue warmth. Don’t call in the process. There’s more to more unsettling moments; the about love and mania
has an ascending melody and
it a tribute or a pastiche, just the differences between the first utilising hammered forcefully, as if under intense
glitch hints at a fondness for
file it alongside your other two versions, however, than a dulcimer and flugelhorn, the Sigur Rós, and the keyboard pressure. This works brilliantly
deep rockers classics. It valve amp versus the original’s second flute and mellotron to figures of the short on opening track Life Worth
deserves to be there. solid state, with over 30 years summon their sinister mood. instrumental Boy are indebted Living, where her vocals
Andrew Male of musicianship and Lois Wilson to Philip Glass. But otherwise alternate with boxy hip-hop
experience bringing the the overall feel – exemplified loops and splashy ’60s drums,
songs up to modern speed. by the Coldplay moves of Crow but on other tracks, like Same
The energy and freshness of, – is of a hankering for grand Mistakes, the energy dissipates
say, Tumble And Tear or Death, gestures and an audience into standard indie-pop. Laurel
Dying And Channel 5 have which will want to sing along. is most powerful when the
more spiritually in common Nonetheless, Years retains production is tight and tuneful
with Pixies and The Gun Club enough intimacy to suggest and focused on her voice. Sun
than those early callow cow Riman could straddle the King, for instance, is a deeply
punks – a fitting last word that indie-mainstream divide moving torch song, while
neatly squares Giant Sand’s rather than fall through the Recover sounds dusky and
sometimes wonky circle. adjoining cracks. sweet, like a silvery folk drone.
Andy Fyfe Kieron Tyler Lucy O’Brien

92 MOJO
 UNDERGROUND
BY ANDREW MALE
Immersion what follows is like an
eccentric, audacious musical
Ty Segall &
★★★ collage that somehow hangs White Fence
Sleepless together. Wobble and his
formidable band alight on
★★★
SWIM. CD/DL/LP
Latinate grooves on Cuban Joy
Colin Newman and Malka Dub, with blazing horns but DRAG CITY. CD/DL/LP
Spigel’s second album e also sudden time changes Californian garage gur
resurrecting their and gearshifts into electronic second buddy-up with te
electronica project in rhythms, which are typical Fence’s Tim Presley.
Even back in of the album. L’Autoroute Segall seems
the 1990s, Sans Fin takes us driving on to be metering
Immersion a twisting musical corniche. output under
were seen as Imagine groovy ’60s film his own name
more than a music themes, Kraftwerk alone, to
techno act, played on acoustic guitars and (merely!) one
with a greater flexibility both pianos, add a mix of ’80s album per year. A wise move,
in instrumentation and in synths, mariachi trumpet and judging from January’s
structure than that genre’s even an interlude with harp, Freedom’s Goblin, which
often foursquare template. and you’re there. brought his extravagant vision
One particular trait that Spigel Mike Barnes (scruffy, jam-heavy Bolan) into
has shown in her solo music, tighter focus. As a sop to his
which Newman also shows in insatiable creativity, the
Wire, and which they have 30-year-old still allows himself
both demonstrated in Githead, collaborative outlets, like this
is an imaginative use of simple 30-minute rematch with mid-
melodic elements. With its 2000’s Fall guitarist and fellow
Jim O’Rourke
shuffling drums and strong
tune, Microclimate has a song-
adoptive Angeleno Presley. In ★★★★
its early stages, Joy feels not Steamroom 40
like feel, while the title track is at all slight, dashed-off or
very different in mood as it inferior, launching out on a
BANDCAMP. DL
gently pulses with restless series of acoustic-rattling, The pick of the Chicago musician’s
rhythmic tics and a inescapably Syd Barrett-esque relentless Bandcamp output.
melancholic, meandering pop tunes whose wonky
keyboard line. The aptly TWO BANDCAMP accounts that have repeatedly yielded
named Propulsoid glides out Kassin brevity is a virtue. Things weird riches over the past few years are those of Chicagoan
gradually descend into experimentalists Kevin Drumm and Jim O’Rourke. Drumm offers
on a one-note drone, like an ★★★★ discordant esoterica, as on a subscription service for his ambient and noise bulletins, but
electronic take on Neu!, Matt
Schulz of Holy Fuck providing
Relax drone-punker Other Way, with with O’Rourke you need to be selective with your purchases lest
LUAKA BOP. CD/DL/LP its feral barking (if that’s the the bank manager come knocking. Recently flagged by Philip
the Dinger-beat. Manic Toys hound eulogised on …Goblin’s
also uses a series of single Slow psychedelic samba and Sherburne on Pitchfork, Steamroom 40 is a truly gorgeous work.
Fanny Dog, she certainly ain’t Comprising a single 41-minute track, Improper Release, recorded
note lines over oscillating quiet desperation.
such an idyllic woofer!), but as at his Steamroom studio in Tokyo, like many of O’Rourke’s
rhythm patterns and a whistle- Two-thirds of the Brazilian +2s with even Segall’s scrappiest
able chorus. Bandcamp releases this is a union of field recordings and Serge
ensemble have new albums on records, there’s plenty here to synthesizer drones. Gone, though, are the usual metallic edges of
Mike Barnes Luaka Bop – Domenico warrant repeat visits. dissonance, replaced by cicadas, rumbling purrs of bass and drifts
Lancellotti’s The Good Is A Big Andrew Perry of ethereal sound, multi-timbre phase differences that suggest a
God is also worth investigating giant glass harmonica, playing by itself in the bright summer sun.
Jah Wobble – but Alexandre Kassin’s is the
pick, partly because he has
★★★★ gone through the mill making The Wave ALSO RELEASED
Dream World it. After a lush title track Pictures
anticipating Friday night,
JAH WOBBLE. CD/DL/LP
Estricnina (Strychnine) – “We ★★★ Infinite Music Negro
Kaleidoscopic stylistic h- should die without pain/That’s Brushes With ★★★★ ★★★★
up and Mr Bassman’s Clase Media
adventurous set to dat
our fate,” he suggests over Happiness A Tribute To La Monte
keyboards simultaneously MOSHI MOSHI. CD/DL/LP Young LA CASTANYA. CD/DL/LP
Wobble has funeral parlour and fun fair A regular on
Undersung Loughboro FIRE. CD/DL/LP
often made – sets the tone for thoughts on Valencia’s
albums that death and divorce. As Coisas indie-rockers’ sublime Recorded live in
Lisbon in 2017, underground music
focus on Que Nos Não Fizemos (The moonlit dream. scene, electric
Spacemen 3’s Sonic
specific Things We Did Not Do) looks at Dave Boom and Zombie guitarist Fernando
musical areas, the ways he and his ex-wife Tattersall’s Zombie’s Etienne Junquera AKA Negro, plays in a
from Moroccan to Chinese to failed each other, A Paisagem prolific trio are Jaumet join with Dhrupad style dubbed “post-nuclear
English folk, so when Dream Morta (Dead Landscape) to release two singing master and tanpura Medievalism”, ghosts of lute
World opens with Chunk Of breaks down their break-up. more records player Celine Wadier to salute the dances, stretched-out
Funk – which comes across like The music is light and playful, this year: godfather of minimalism with renaissance solos and
Chic meets Silver Convention however – retro-modern three epic tracks of modal, Renbourne-esque folk
October promises an upbeat
– you assume it will set the samba with a sand, sunshine microtonal deliciousness, excursions dissembled by effects
rocker, but this LP was dreamt pedals, electronics, field
tone. Except it doesn’t. Even and cocktails feel – so if you threading saxophone drones and
into being in one night, live to analogue electronic hum around recordings and ambient bleed.
halfway through that track the avoid the lyric sheet it’s a tape, with only a sheaf of their Gorgeous stuff.
Jaumet’s slow, mantric patterns
instrumentation becomes feelgood 40 minutes. leader’s lyrics pre-existing. It and rapid syllabic patter.
more subtle and complex, and David Hutcheon proceeds funereally, as if in
the suspended animation of a
Toshimaru
Anne-James Nakamura
nocturnal hallucination, like
sleepwalking through a dark Chaton & Andy ★★★★
and empty airport, but also Moor Re-Verbed (No-Input
right there in the room as ★★★ Mixing Board 9)
Wave Pics’ on-the-fly magic
unfolds. Tattersall sings in
Tout Ce Que Je Sais ROOM 40. DL/LP
UNSOUNDS. CD/DL/LP Toshimaru
varying voices, from the
spoken mundanity of the day The second live Nakamura has made
he mislaid 500 euros (“in instalment of their the No-Input Mixing
Heretics series (the Board his own. A
cash”!) but found unexpected
first recorded with mixing console that
human warmth on an Thurston Moore) manipulates nothing but its own
unnamed city’s streets (The finds Chaton reciting poems to feedback, Nakamura’s
Little Window), through to The heterodox heroes De Sade, “instrument” has created
Burnt Match’s tremulous, near- Burroughs and Caravaggio, as everything from wild dissonance
Buddhist meditations on the Moor accompanies with post- to strange beauty. This release is
material. As his Tom Verlaine jazz noise-guitar threat. Ghosts possibly his most orthodox and
guitar tones drip forth like are summoned, the main one lovely, moving from rhythmic
liquid gold, you can’t help being the destructed poetic metal grooves to distorted dub
Kassin: funtime manifestos of French poet/ excursions and short-wave
in the funeral falling ever deeper beneath
this record’s spell. composer Leo Ferre. techno melancholy. AM
parlour.
Andrew Perry

MOJO 93
 F I LT E R A L B UM S

Neil &
Liam Finn
★★★
Lightsleeper
INERTIA MUSIC. CD/DL/LP
Father-and-son projec
douses classic songcra
in lysergic trappings.
The Finn family
motto is,
apparently,
“Does it make
you feel
something?”
And Neil Finn’s first album
with eldest son Liam (a solo
artist in his own right) is a
family affair – brainstormed
at Liam’s wedding, with Neil’s
wife/Liam’s mum Sharon on
bass, younger son Ellroy on
drums, and guest-starring
Hardware rock: family friends Connan
Idles document Mockasin and Mick Fleetwood
the here and now. – delivering stargazing,
introspective pop awash with
up sees them crank mean it: June concerns feel. Father and son are well-
Idles everything up to the he death of Talbot’s matched, Neil’s classic
★★★★ next level. In Joe Talbot daughter, with a chorus
songcraft meeting Liam’s
wilder instincts midway:
Joy As An Act they have a rottweiler hat paraphrases the scattered space-pop of
of a frontman, a true Hemingway’s famous Where’s My Room glides on
Of Resistance star whose rich holler lash fiction: “For sale:
heavy, Beatley strokes of cello
and disco ambience, while the
PARTISAN. CD/DL/LP
is brought to life via a baby shoes. Never shimmering Lennonesque
Acerbic Bristol punks deliver a litany of disgust and worn”. Elsewhere, longing of Listen and Any
state-of-the-nation address. Other Way are dusted with
absurdist, Mark E Smith-like one- post-punk invention and bilious acid-pop fairy dust. The result
IDLES’ 2017 debut Brutalism was liners. While Never Fight A Man narratives for Brexit-era Britain is a psychedelic soft rock treat
lobbed from the English provinces With A Perm suggests a yob-rock abound. No band is better equipped that peaks with the uncanny,
ethereal chord-changes of the
like a grenade, a collection in which mentality, single Danny Nedelko is to document the here and now, sleep-walking Meet Me In
scathing wit and anger did battle – a brilliantly scabrous pop song. warts and all. The Air, but poignancy,
and won wide favour. Their follow- Never once do you doubt that they Ben Myers tunefulness and feeling
abound throughout.
Stevie Chick
BC Camplight Gilbert Kathryn Joseph Tunng
★★★★ O’Sullivan ★★★★ ★★★ The Brian
Deportation Blues ★★★★ From When I Wake Songs You Make
Jonestown
BELLA UNION. CD/DL/LP Gilbert O’Sullivan The Want Is At Night
Absorbing yet disconcerting BMG. CD/DL/LP ROCK ACTION. CD/DL/LP FULL TIME HOBBY. CD/DL/LP Massacre
aural journey through Gilbert’s back. Scottish Album of the No surprises from reunited ★★★
anxiety and distress. No flat cap required. winner returns, blood original line-up of the Something Else
The album but undefeated. folktronica perennials. A RECORDS. CD/DL/LP
Gilbert
Deportation O’Sullivan’s Joseph’s debut The last Tunng
Blues most The first of two album
19th album album, Bones album to be issued this year fro
closely takes him back You Have feature
resembles in Berlin/LA-based colle
to the very Thrown Me founder
terms of spirit And Blood members Sam The Brian
beginning.
rather than musical slant or I’ve Spilled Genders and Jonestown
With his beguiling take on
messiness is Alex Chilton’s deployed minimal colour – Mike Lindsay was 2007’s Good Massacre’s
McCartney’s wistfulness
1979 aural catalogue of self- mostly subtle piano, maybe Arrows. After that, Genders 17th album is
crossed with Nilsson’s
disintegration Like Flies On a scrape of guitar or quiet pursued his own path with for the most
plaintiveness, O’Sullivan is part downer
Sherbert. Brian Christinzio’s drum thuds – to paint Diagrams and Lindsay kept
an absolute gift for producer psych. Atmospheres created
follow-up to 2015’s How To Die maximum emotion. The the name for two more Tunng
Ethan Johns, who has enabled are fug-like and foggy, with
In The North opens with a follow-up has richer, dreamier albums, also recorded as
nuclear-level blast of guitar his core talents to blossom: violent flashes of drums and
naïve melodies, simple yet contours, but the mood is Cheek Mountain Thief, and
noise and features songs gaunter; within these walls collaborated with Hannah Peel guitars cutting through the
tellingly titled I’m In A Weird effective arrangements, dreamscape. My Poor Heart is
with lyrics like overheard constructed by more and, most recently, with Laura
Place Now, I’m Desperate and electronic-edged reverb, Marling as LUMP. Genders and jarring, beautiful noise; guitar,
Am I Dead Yet? The fuel is his conversations around the tambourines, then Anton
Joseph sounds imprisoned by Lindsay reunited as Throws in
2015 expulsion from the UK home. These are heard to Newcombe’s voice atop,
her haunted threnodies. They 2016 and are together again in
and the subsequent trauma: greatest effect on the gentle sneering about a world going
turn out to have been written an original line-up Tunng.
anger, drink, recording in swagger of The Same The after a major relationship to blow. If there are influences,
Circuitous as that may be, the
darkened rooms. The manic Whole World Over and bust-up, but if the couple have resultant album, Songs You then they are mainly their
outcome melds nods to Randy Dansette Dreams And 45s, since reunited, there’s no Make At Night, sounds exactly own back catalogue – a less
Newman, doo wop-pop (a which evokes a final dance audible relief, only unrelenting like a Tunng LP: conversational Stonesy Take It To The Man! and
fractured take on The Beach at a long-gone youth club. pain, perfectly distilled in vocals, down-beat folky Their Satanic Majesties’ Second
Boys circa Breakaway), rococo Recorded with an assembled circular arrangements and melodies, drifting arrange- Request from 1996 are the
Rundgren-isms, Air-evoking team of younger, enthusiastic Joseph’s warbly intensity (a ments, precise acoustic guitar, main ones. A more structured
electronics and late-night jazz. players and guest spots from slighter cousin of Melanie and interjections of found sounds back to basics approach really
Implausibly, it hangs together Chas Hodges (unmistakable Buffy Sainte-Marie). Yet the and beds of chattering, pulsing works for them too. Recorded
and, indeed, convincingly on This Riff) and Andy songs can coalesce to a form electronica and programmed in Newcombe’s own Cobra
documents fragmentation of Fairweather Low, Gilbert of balm too, as when rhythms. While the anthemic Studio in Berlin with the BJM
Lindsay Melbourne

the individual. An album like O’Sullivan is a celebratory Mountain’s full-band dynamic Sleepwalking is the highlight, leader at the controls, he ’s lost
Deportation Blues could listen. It may not convert those takes flight, or Tell My Lover’s Songs… feels shy of messing in the moment. “I called out
become a cult favourite years without a sweet tooth, but it’s Voix Bulgares-style overdubs. with the familiar. Fifteen years to you,” he cries on Psychic
after its release. Best to hear it a fantastic late flowering for In these moments, Joseph isn’t after forming, Tunng have set Lips, like a true psychedelic
now though. an often overlooked artist. alone in her grief. themselves in aspic. paragon, hypnotising his flock.
Kieron Tyler Daryl Easlea Martin Aston Kieron Tyler Lois Wilson

94 MOJO
YO U R FAVO URI T E ROCK M A GA Z I N E

I S S U E 9 ON SAL E N OW
C H E C K O U T W W W. P L A N E T R O C K . C O M
 F I LT E R A L B UM S E X T R A

Galen Ayers Daniel Bachman Brian Campeau Delgres Elephant Micah

★★★ ★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★★
Monument The Morning Star Old Dog, New Tricks Mo Jodi Genericana
BOMBINATE. CD/DL THREE LOBED. DL/2LP SMALL POND. CD/DL PIAS. CD/DL/LP WESTERN VINYL. CD/DL/LP
“Do you want to know about A former sparring partner of A Canadian settled in Australia, Guitar/drums/sousaphone trio A folklorist in Indiana, Joe
my story?” asks Ayers. The Ryley Walker, Bachman again Campeau has developed a with their roots in Guadeloupe O’Connell’s roots music is
daughter of Soft Machine’s stretches the American Primitive distinctive singer-songwriter and the sort of feel for melody, increasingly unfettered by
Kevin spins thumping yarns, via guitar genre. On this 12th set, style over four LPs: warm, sunlit raw grooves and elemental-pop tradition. His 13th LP betrays
airy, folky pop that’s musically the folk comes juxtaposed with psych-ish pop, with gently power that made stars of The affinities with old friend Jason
adept, but it’s her lyrics that fire industrial creaks and Eastern reverbed vocals (Fleet Foxes/ Black Keys. They sing mostly in Molina, but also a taste for
the emotional circuitry; a spark drones, the virtuosity tempered John Grant); odd production tics French, and the language of staticky, electronic abstraction.
of Canterbury glowing in LA. JB with scrabbling wildness. JM (barking dogs; electronics). JB deep-felt Creole blues. JB Lovely songs, too. JM

Gulp Odetta Hartman Lucero Nas Paul Rodgers

★★★ ★★★ ★★★ ★★ ★★★★
All Good Wishes Old Rockhounds Among The Ghosts Nasir Free Sprit
ELK. 2CD/DL Never Die THIRTY TIGERS. CD/DL/LP G.O.O.D. MUSIC. DL QUARTO VALLEY. CD/DL/LP/DVD
The Cardiff duo relocated to MEMPHIS INDUSTRIES. CD/DL/LP Tennessee roots rockers ease Ever since 1994’s debut Illmatic, Recorded at the Royal Albert
Scotland via Norfolk to make a New Yorker uncovers archaic off the barroom brawl piano the ‘ghetto Othello’ has shown Hall on May 28, 2017, last night
fusion of pastoral vocal, motorik traces of an Appalachian past blues for a reflective, more a tin ear for a beat. But producer of the tour “Celebrating The
repetition and ancient tech. via well-crafted songs played modern sound, even adding a Kanye West digs deep for far- Music Of Free” found Rodgers in
Minimal beat-logic and a new- on banjo with sparely applied War On Drugs-style shimmer to flung Eastern exotica on Nasir, a terrific throaty blues-soul form
age-ish ability to work below electronic production and Bottom Of The Sea. Sourmash- major step up, until Nas fluffs doing full and vigorous justice
pop’s usual emotional horizons found sounds. Slightly mannered voiced Ben Nicol’s affection for the rhyme ball spouting to 16 of their revered best. The
sets them apart. JB vocals; odd but good. JB Americana totems is intact. CP credulity-testing conspiracies. AC spirit of Free is all right still. GB

EXTENDED PLAY

Underworld and Underworld’s Rick EP sounds so fully

Smith were in meetings realised. First up, Bells &
& Iggy Pop about the soundtrack for Circles trails clouds of
Teatime Dub the second Trainspotting seductive cigarette smoke
film, it’s a testimony to and imminent danger as
Encounters the refined operations Iggy raps about a more Ali Shaheed Stone Foundation
CAROLINE INT. EP of both permissive era Muhammad & ★★
Recorded in a hastily parties of airline travel Adrian Younge Everybody, Anyone
convened London hotel that this nd warns of a ★★★ 100% RECORDS. CD/DL/LP/MC
Acid Jazz die-hards will dig this
room-studio while Iggy four-track collective future The Midnight Hour eighth LP by Weller-endorsed
with “no more LINEAR LABS. CD/DL/2LP UK R&B aces: classy on Don’t
ock critics… Younge’s Axelrodish take on Walk Away’s jazzy Northern
orchestral soul dominates soul. But previous A-list guest
European ideas Muhammad’s first post A Tribe vocalists (eg. Weller) have set a
of good and Called Quest. Laeticia Sadier bar their guitarist Neil Jones is
bad/Only a fires a Stereolab curveball. JM not equipped to match. DE
vengeful god
who does not allow
smoking on the airplane.”
Trapped channels Suicide
with insistent beat
repetition while Iggy
ruminates softly; I’ll See
Big pauses for a breath in
ambient, nostalgic drift Lee Thompson The Vryll Society
before Get Your Shirt hits ★★★★ ★★★
a late spurt of energy, a One Man’s Madness Course Of
two-stepping, fist- BMG. CD The Satellite
Two-disc OST to Madness’s DELTASONIC. CD/DL
pumping bid for festival thimble-twisting saxman’s Named after a 19th century
dominance, it makes a riotous bio-pic, where he lip- sci-fi master-race and sounding
most ravey and satisfying syncs his wife/sister/accountant- appropriately ambitious, the
end to this very pleasing and-more with comedic flair. Liverpudlian five-piece’s debut
Full of prime-Mads, interviews blends shimmery psych guitar,
brief encounter. JB and solo Kix: Madness wouldn’t spacey grooves and indie-
be Madness without him. IH falsetto vocals. Ones to watch. JB

96 MOJO
 CROSSTOWW
N
W CONCERTS
P R E S E N T S

DEATH CAB
FOR CUTIE UK & IRELAND TOUR 2019

THURSDAY 24 JANUARY MONDAY 28 JANUARY

DUBLIN OLYMPIA NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
UK & IRELAND TOUR 2018 FRIDAY 25 JANUARY TUESDAY 29 JANUARY
MANCHESTER ALBERT HALL LEEDS O2 ACADEMY
SATURDAY 26 JANUARY WEDNESDAY 30 JANUARY
GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY BRISTOL O2 ACADEMY
NOV 12 — DUBLIN OLYMPIA THEATRE
FRIDAY 01 FEBRUARY
NOV 14 — LONDON O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON LONDON EVENTIM APOLLO
NOV 15 — OXFORD O2 ACADEMY
NOV 16 — BRIGHTON THE DOME
NOV 18 — CARDIFF THE GREAT HALL
NOV 19 — BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY
NOV 20 — GLASGOW O2 ACADEMY
NOV 21 — NEWCASTLE NORTHUMBRIA UNIVE
RSITY
COURTNEYBARNETT.COM.AU

WITH SPEC IAL GUES T

LAURA JEAN
A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS
& FR I E N DS PRESENTATIO
N BY ARRANGEMENT WITH
X-RAY

NEW ALBUM
TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL D E AT H C A B FO R C U T I E .CO M
OUT NOW T H E N E W A L B U M T H A N K YO U FO R TO D AY AVA I L A B L E AU G U S T 17

A C R O S S T O W N C O N C E R T S , S J M C O N C E R T S , D F C O N C E R T S & D H P P R E S E N TAT I O N
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CAA

GRUFF
RHYS PLUS
SPECIAL GUESTS

FR DAY 12 OCTOBER MONDAY 15 OCTOBER

TUESDAY 16 OC OBER WEDNESDAY 17 OC OBER

JOHNBUTLERTRIO.COM

UK TOUR NOVEMBER 2018

08 PORTSMOUTH
Wedgewood Rooms
09 BRIGHTON The Old Market
10 FOLKESTONE Quarterhouse UK TOUR OCTOBER 2018
11 OXFORD O2 Academy 11 BRIGHTON CONCORDE 2
12 BRISTOL SWX 12 EXETER LEMON GROVE
13 FALMOUTH PRINCESS PAVILION
13 BIRMINGHAM Glee Club 14 BRISTOL MOTION
15 GLASGOW SWG3 16 BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY2
16 LEEDS Church Leeds 17 GLASGOW BARROWLAND
17 LIVERPOOL Arts Club 19 DUBLIN ACADEMY
21 NEWCASTLE INSTITUTE
BABELSBERG - THE NEW ALBUM OUT NOW 22 SHEFFIELD LEADMILL
ON ROUGH TRADE RECORDS 23 LONDON O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
THE ALBUM SOMETHING ELSE OUT NOW
A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CAA
& F R I E N D S P R E S E N TAT I O N A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS & FRIENDS PRESENTATION
I N A S S O C I AT I O N W I T H C O D A A G E N C Y BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY

T I C K E T S AVA I L A B L E F R O M
SEETICKETS.COM - GIGANTIC.COM - TICKETMASTER.CO.UK - EVENTIM.CO.UK
STARGREEN.COM - GIGSANDTOURS.COM - GIGSINSCOTLAND.COM

@CROSSTOWN_LIVE - /CROSSTOWNCONCERTS - @CROSSTOWNCONCERTS

 Recommended Retailers
Here’s the exclusive monthly guide to the Rapture Nightfly Records
country’s most mouthwatering independent Unit 12, Woolgate Centre, 52A Windsor Street,
Witney OX28 6AP Uxbridge, UB8 1AB
record emporia. Chosen for their knowledge 01993 700567 01895 259369
of both current releases and specialist areas,
Tangled Parrot Rough Trade
hey’re guaranteed to provide the personal Hay-On-Wye 130 Talbot Road, W11 1JA
uch you won’t find elsewhere. And they stock 5 Market St, Hay-on-Wye, 020 7229 8541 /
O too. All where you see this sign. Hereford, HR3 5AF www.roughtrade.com
07817781493 /
www.tangledparrot.com Rough Trade East
P&C Music Vinyl Music In The Green ‘Dray Walk’ Old Truman
SCOTLAND 6 Devonshire Place, Underground Rutland Square, Buxton Road, Truck Store Brewery, 91 Brick Lane E1 6QL
Skipton Rd, Harrogate, 3 Regent Street, Barnsley Bakewell DE45 1BZ 101CowleyRd,Oxford 0207 392 7788 /
Assai HG1 4 AA S70 2EG 07929 282 950 OX41HU
241-243 King Street, www.roughtrade.com
01423504035 01865 793866 /
Broughty Ferry, Dundee Music Mania Sister Ray
NORTH WALES 4/6 Piccadilly Arcade, www.truckmusicstore.co.uk
DD5 2AX Piccadilly Records 34-35 Berwick St, W1V 3RF
01382 738406 53 Oldham St, Manchester Hanley, Stoke On Trent 0207 7343297 /
M1 1JR Vod Music ST1 1DL EAST
1 Grindlay Street, 28 New Street, Mold, www.sisterray.co.uk
Edinburgh EH3 9AT 0161 839 8008 Flintshire CH7 1NZ 01782 206000 / Compact Music
0131 228 3943 www.musicmaniauk.com 89 North St, Sudbury, C010 IRF Soul Brother
Vinyl Cafe 07904688739 / 1 Keswick Road
44 Abbey St, Carlisle CA3 8TX www.vodmusic.co.uk Revolution 01787 881160 SW15 2HL
Barnstorm Records
Records 01228 522845 020 8875 1018 /
16 Park Place Shopping Fives
128 Queensbury Court, X Records MID/STH WALES 22 The Broadway, www.soulbrother.com
Centre, Walsall WS1 1NP
Dumfries DG1 1BU 44 Bridge St, Bolton BL1 2EG Andys 01922 620895 Leigh On Sea SS9 1AW Soul Propieter
01387 267894 01204 384579 16 Northgate, 01702 711 629 64 Elm Road, Brixton SW2 2UB
Aberystwyth Seismic Records 07532 492196
Coda Music Spencer Street, Holt Vinyl Vault
12BankSt,Edinburgh NORTH EAST SY23 2JS 1 Cromer Road, Holt NR25 6AA
Leamington Spa CV31 3NF
EH12LN 01970 624581 01263 713225 SOUTH
Blackslab 01926 831333
0131 622 7246 22 Milbank Terrace, Redcar Derricks
ST Records Intense Records A Slice of Vinyl
Europa Music TS10 1ED 221 Oxford St, Swansea 33/34 Viaduct Road, 1st Floor, Katies Vinyl Bar
SA1 3BQ 165 Wolverhampton St,
10 Friars Street, Stirling FK8 1HA 07590590735 Dudley, West Midlands Chelmsford CM1 1TS & Kitchen, 134 High Street,
01786 448623 01792 654 226 / 01245 347372 Gosport, PO12 1HA
Crash Records www.derricksmusic.co.uk DY1 3HA
Flipside 35 The Headrow, Leeds 01384 230726 The Nevermind 07816940
LS1 6PU Diverse Music
Kilmarnock Indoor Market, 10 Charles St, Newport Strand Records The Music Store 101 Collectors
65-75 Tichield Street, 0113 2436743 10 Church St, Boston PE21 6NW Records
NP20 1JU Unit 15, The Strand,
Kilmarnock KA1 1PA Earworm Records 01633 259 661 / Longton ST3 2JF 01205 369419 101 West St, Farnham GU9 7EN
0743 116015 Powells Yard, Goodramgate, www.diversevinyl.com 0759 29208319 01252 734409 /
York YO1 7LS
Relevant
Maidinvinyl Haystacks 260 Mill Rd, Cambridge CB1 3NF www. 101collectors
7 Rosemount Viaduct 01904 627488 EAST MIDLANDS 01223 244 684 records.co.uk
2 Castle Wall, Blackfold,
Aberdeen, AB25 1NE Jumbo Records Hay on Wye Analogue October
07864 547203 1-3 Merrion Centre, HR3 5EQ
Off The Beaten Slipped Discs
Leeds LS2 8NG Tracks 21 High St, Billericay, CM12 9AJ 19a South Street, Chichester
Mo Fidelity 075272 98199 01245 350820 PO19 1EJ
0113 245 5570 / 36 Aswell Street, Louth
126 Murray Street Spillers LN11 9HP 01243697160
www.jumborecords.co.uk Vinyl Hunter
Montrose, DD10 9JG 31 Morgan Arcade, 01507 607677 / www. 56 St Johns Street, Bury St Black Circle
07870 491240 J.G.Windows Cardif CF10 1AF offthebeatentracks.org Records
1-7 Central Arcade, Newcastle Edmunds IP33 1SN
02920224905 2 Roebuck Mews, 2a Hocklife
upon Tyne, NE1 5BP Rough Trade 01284 725410
NORTH WEST Tangled Parrot St, Leighton Buzzard LU7 9BG
0191 232 1356 5 Broad St, Nottingham 01525 839917 /
Carmarthen NG1 3AL LONDON
81 Renshaw Street Muse Music www.blackcirclerecords.
Liverpool L1 2SJ Upper Floor, 32 King St, 0115869 4012 Audio Gold
40 Market St, Hebden Bridge Carmarthen SA31 1BS co.uk
01517071850 HX7 6AA Tallbird Records 308-310 Park Road,
Terminal Records Crouch End, N8 8LA The Compact Disc
A&A Records 01422 843496 10 Soresby Street, 57 London Road, Sevenoaks
Unit 25, Courtyard Shops, Chesterield S40 1JN 0208 341 9007
12 High St, Congleton Old Bridge, Haverfordwest TN14 1AU
CW12 1BC Record Collector 01246 234548
232 Fullwood Road, SA61 2AN Casbah Records 01732 740 889
01260 280778 / The Beehive, 320-322 Creek Davids Music
www.aamusic.co.uk Sheield S10 3BA 07796987534 Vinyl Lounge
0114 266 8493 4 Regent St, Mansield, Rd, Greenwich SE10 9SW 12 Eastcheap,
Terry’s 0208 858 1964 / Letchworth SG6 3DE
Action 8 Church St, Pontypridd NG18 1SS
47 Church St, Preston Reflex 01623 427291 www.casbahrecords.co.uk 01462 475 900 /
23 Nun St, Newcastle CF37 2TH
PR1 3DH 01443 406421 Eel Pie Records www.davids-music.co.uk
01772 884 772 / NE1 5AG
0191 260 3246 / WEST 45 Church Street, Twickenham Elephant Records
www.action-records.co.uk TW1 1NR 8 Kings Walk, Winchester
www.reflexcd.co.uk MIDLANDS Badlands
The Electric Church Roots2Music 07817756315 SO23 8AF
Eclipse Records 11 St George’s Place,
Birthwistle Building, Over 67B Westgate Road, Unit 4 Victorian Arcade Cheltenham GL50 3LA Flashback Records 078711 88474
Square, Winsford CW7 2JP Newcastle NE1 1SG 01242 227 725 131 Bethnal Green Road, Empire Records
07928897413 Walsall, WS1 1RE
0191 230 2500 / Shoreditch E2 7DG 21 Heritage Close,
01922 322142 Forest Vinyl
Grind and Groove www.roots2music.com 0207 735 49356 St Albans AL3 4EB
Fish Records Unit 7, Hollyhill Park ,
Records Vinyl Eddie Unit 2, Crown Couryard, Hollyhill Road, Cinderford Flashback Records 01727 860890
58 Cavendish Street, Keighley 86 Tadcaster Rd, York Crown Street, Stone Gl14 2YB 50 Essex Rd, Islington N1 8LR Gatefeld Record
BD21 3RL YO24 1LR ST15 8UY 07751 404393. Flashback Records Lounge
07483 156867 07975899839 Tel: 01785 818847 144 Crouch Hill, Crouch End 61 Hermitage Road,
The Music Store Hitchin SG5 1DB
Loafers Vinyl & Vinyl Tap Left For Dead Drake House, 1 Pavilion N8 9DX
0779 3029754
Coffee 42 John William St, 14 Wyle Cop, Shrewsbury Business Park, Forest Vale Let It Roll Records
Rustic Level, The Piece Hall, Huddersield HD1 1ER SY1 1XB Industrial Estate, Cinderford 121 Kentish Town Road, Gatefold Sounds
Halifax HX1 1RE 01484 517720 / 01743 247777 / GL14 2YD NW1 8PB 70 High St, Whitstable CT5 1BD
07960 532371 www.vinyltap.co.uk www.leftfordeadshop.co.uk 01600 716362 0203 6023917 01227 263337

98 MOJO
 NEW FROM
Harbour Records
29 High Street, Emsworth
PO10 7AG
01243 37415
Slipped Discs
57 High Street, Billericay
CM12 9AX
Jam
32 High Street, Falmouth
TR11 2AD
PROPER MUSIC
Smugglers Records 01326 211722 /
Heathen Chemistry 9 King Street, Deal CT146HX www.jamrecords.co.uk
130 West Street, Fareham 07500114442 Longwell Records
PO160EL
South Record Shop 36 Temple St. Keynsham CLUB SOUL PRESENTS
074822 12656 22 Queens Rd, Southend-on- BS31 1EH
077954 72504
THE SCENE CLUB
Hot Salvation Sea SS1 1LU
32 Rendezvous Street, 01702 826166 Phoenix Sounds The Scene Club in Soho, had previously
Folkestone CT20 1EY www.southrecordshop.com Unit 6, Pearl Assurance House, been a jazz club, but by 1963 it had become
01303 487657 Queen Street, a revered mod venue, playing soul, R&B,
Stylus Records blues, ska and rock’n’roll records to a
Hundred Records 35a High Street, Baldock Newton Abbot sharply dressed crowd. This new to vinyl
47 The Hundred, SG7 6BG TQ12 2AQ compilation collects some of the classic
Romsey SO51 8GE 07818022615 01626 334942 tracks played there at the time. The 16 cuts
01794 518655 The Vault Raves From include gems from Alvin Robinson, The
1 Castle Street, Christchurch Dixie Cups, Chris Kenner and Bessie Banks,
Music’s Not Dead The Grave first time reissued on vinyl from remastered
71 Devonshire Road, Dorset, BH23 1DP 20 Cheap St, Frome,
01202 482134 original analogue tapes. It is presented on
Bexhill On Sea TN40 1BD BA11 1BN 180g heavyweight audiophile vinyl. Also
07903 731371 Vinilo 01373 464666 / www. available: The Twisted Wheel – Manchester
55 Queensway, Southampton ravesfromthegrave.com CHARLY
Pebble Records SO14 3BL
The Basement, 14 Gildredge Red House Records
07825 707369 21-23 Faringdon Road,
Rd, Eastbourne
BN21 4RL The Vinyl Frontier Swindon SN1 5AR
01323 430 304 / 35 Grove Road, Eastbourne 01793 526393 / JASON McNIFF
www.pebblerecords.co.uk BN21 4TT www.redhouserecords.
JOY AND INDEPENDENCE
01323 410313 co.uk
Pie & Vinyl Vinyl Matters
61 Castle Road, Southsea Bakers Lane, Chapel Street, Retro Sounds Jason McNiff, noted London-based
PO5 3AY Unit 7, Morfa Hall, Clif Road songwriter and guitarist, teams up with
Petersield, GU32 3DY At The Helm Records for a career defining
07837 009587 Newquay TR7 1SG
07720 244849 sixth album, Joy And Independence.
07964 043364
The Record Shop Vinyl Realm Coming hot on the heels of last year’s
37 Hill Avenue, Amersham 52 Long St., Devizes, SN10 1NP Room 33 Records double compilation, Rain Dries Your Eyes,
HP6 5BX 07502 332327 2, Market House Arcade, McNiff strips it back to the essence of the
01494 433311 Bodmin, Cornwall PL31 2JA songwriter’s craft; 10 brand new songs
Vinyl Revolution 01208 264754 (and a stripped back re-working of a
The Record Corner 33 Duke St, Brighton BN1 1AG highlight from Rain Dries Your Eyes –
Pound Lane, Godalming 0333 323 0736 Rooster Records ‘Stuck In The Past’), just voice and guitar,
GU7 1BX 98 Fore Street, Exeter live in the studio.
Vinylstore Jr EX4 3HY “A superior singer/writer” – No Depression
01483 422 006 20 Castle Street, Canterbury
www.therecordcorner. 01392 272009 / AT THE HELM
CT1 2QJ www.roosterrecords.co.uk
co.uk 01227 456907
Resident Sanctuary Music
Acorn House, 42 Nailsworth,
28 Kensington Gardens,
Brighton
SOUTH WEST Mill Trading Estate, STONE THE CROWS & MAGGIE BELL
The Drift Nailsworth GL6 0AG
BN1 4AL
01273 606312 Record Shop 01453 704481 BEST OF
Revolution Vinyl 103 High St, Totnes, TQ9 6SN Shiftys This 2CD set devotes the first CD to Stone
Café 01803 866828 / 169 High Street, Street The Crows, all tracks recorded 1970 to
8 Trinity Road, Weymouth www.thedriftrecordshop. BA16 0ND 1973 and drawn from their four albums.
DT4 8TJ co.uk 07722 906366 The second disc to Maggie Bell with
01305 788664 all tracks drawn from her first two solo
Friendly Records Sound Knowledge albums recorded 1974 and 1975. Also
Rockit 8 North Street, Bedminster, 22 Hughenden Yard, features the live track ‘Only Woman Bleed’
58 High Street, Poole BH15 Bristol BS3 1HT Marlborough SN8 1LT recorded 1993 in Glasgow and the theme
1DA 07701 027824 01672 511106 to ‘Taggart’ recorded 1983. This Best Of is
07964 446780 Hurley Books & Vinyl Collectors the cream of the crop from both artists.
Slide Records Records ANGEL AIR
and Sellers
9 The Arcade 3, Jetty Street, Mevagissey Cross Keys Arcade, Queen
Bedford, MK40 1NS PL26 6HU Street, Salisbury SP1 1EY
01234 261603 01726 842200 01722410660

North West RAB NOAKES

Grind and Groove Records
59b Cavendish Street, Keighley, West WELCOME TO ANNIVERSARYVILLE
Yorkshire BD21 3RL Tel: 01535 609626 This latest album from Rab Noakes has
grindandgrooverecords.com all the possibilities of proving, in time, to
Itisascenictripacrossthemoorstovisit be a career-best. Its 17 tracks are made
Keighley,atownmoreassociatedwithrugby up of new songs, old songs and well-
leaguethanrecordshops.GrindAndGroove selected interpretations, all brought to life
Recordsisasmallemporiumwithafascinating with engaging verve and a high degree
history,runbyGarethandKerryBeck.It used of quality. A fine collection of songs
tobealady’shosieryshopcalledCorsets and reflecting all aspects of Rab Noakes’ long
upstairstothesideofthebuildingwasa and distinguished career, all showcased
nightclubcalledKnikkers.OnDecember 19, brilliantly with upbeat, string-laden
1977,theSexPistolsplayedKnikkersaspartof arrangements provided by an array of fine
theirNeverMindtheBanstour.Theshop hasa musicians, expertly produced.
finecollectionofSexPistolsvinyland NEON RECORDS
memorabiliaandishighlyrecommendedforfans
oftheband.Theshophasafabulouscollectionof
second-handvinylandwillcleanyourrecords.

WWW.PROPERMUSICGROUP.COM
 F I LT E R R E I S SU E S

Whatever you want

Remastered, on vinyl, “The Fannies”’ five Creation-era albums spangle
Status Quo boogie with harmony pop gold. By Danny Eccleston.
Bandwagonesque’s riff-engorged I Don’t Know, but
Teenage Fanclub matured on Thirteen with the one-two of 120 Mins
Bandwagonesque ★★★★★ and Escher, which artfully articulated TFC’s stasis
(“I don’t wanna be well known”; “I don’t know if I’m
Thirteen ★★★ going up or down”). Now he had songs to rival Blake
Grand Prix ★★★★★ and Love – and their triple threat would manifest
Songs From Northern Britain ★★★★ fully on 1995’s Grand Prix.
In truth, Teenage Fanclub had started looking
Howdy ★★★ serious since mid-’94 (Definitely Maybe had focused a
SONY. LP
lot of minds, inside and outside Creation). They’d
sacked O’Hare – the sprightlier, poppier drumming

F
OR A couple of years in the early ’90s,
Scotland’s Teenage Fanclub were the best band of Paul Quinn added zip to the group’s habitual mid-
in the world. They must have been, because “Their triple tempo glide – engaged veteran engineer David
Kurt Cobain said they were, and for a couple of threat would Bianco (Tom Petty, The Posies), and spent a golden
years in the early ’90s what Kurt Cobain said, went. autumn at The Manor in Oxfordshire, to which
The declaration would surely have raised manifest fully they’d remembered to bring finished songs, and
eyebrows among observers of the shaggy Bellshill on 1995’s where Norman Blake fell in love with Krista, the
studio housekeeper. They’re still married.
four-piece early doors, when it was unclear how
seriously “The Fannies” were meant to be taken, Grand Prix.” The result still feels as precision-engineered as
or indeed, how seriously they took themselves. the glossy Simtek F1 car on the cover. Love’s
Everything Flows and God Knows It’s True, 1990 Sparky’s Dream, a powerpop powerhouse, and
singles on Fire Records subsidiary Paperhouse, had surfaced a Blake’s effortless Mellow Doubt, replete with whistling solo, are
post-Dinosaur Jr meld of beatific noise-pop and classic late-’60s bona fide showstoppers. McGinley opens the album with About
songwriting. Even so, a larky, mostly lovable ‘boogie’ setting tended You’s rousing fanfare and provides its soft centre: the gorgeous,
to obscure what was, or could be, genuinely precious, as did self-castigating Verisimilitude. Just when you’re thinking Discolite
drummer Brendan O’Hare’s drummery antics. might be the duff one, the chorus kicks in.
It took Don Fleming, the producer of the band’s first recordings Grand Prix was a smash. While not in any sense Britpop, it had
for Creation Records, to notice that they sang beautiful harmonies some of the brightness, the Beatleyness of the time. But TFC
and suggest that they should probably, you know, do that more. The would soon join a handful of wiser heads looking to distance
revelation seemed to unlock a mind-shift – music as outreach, not themselves from the mid-’90s clambake, and the party-pooping
in-joke! – and the immediate outcome was Bandwagonesque, the first vibe became more pronounced with the cover art of their fourth
real glimpse of the multiple personalities of the group’s distinct Creation album – a dreary shot of a shut-down fairground waltzer
singer-songwriters: starry-eyed bassist Gerard Love; cosmic joker bearing the legend ‘Disco Fever’.
Norman Blake; dark horse Raymond McGinley. The message of renunciation seemed more strident then than it
This time, rock’n’roll fun was underwritten by something does now. 1997’s Songs From Northern Britain was smaller, less shiny
richer. Pet Rock and What You Do To Me still boogie, but when than Grand Prix at a time when their contemporaries were betting
The Concept’s encounter with a Quo-curious love interest breaks on bigger (TFC had front seats for that show, mixing their album at
into its Beach Boys harmony tsunami, it’s Abbey Road while Oasis finished Be Here Now), but everything good
like the scales fall from your eyes. Beauty they’d learned about songwriting and production was preserved.
shines, too, in the shimmery pre-chords of Bianco was back, so were The Byrds in Blake’s Start Again and I
Love’s punk-pop masterstroke, Star Sign, Don’t Want Control Of You – wistful yet stirring melodies
and the sky-blue guitar chimes of the conveying his best lyrics: real and wise. Again, McGinley was on
instrumental Is This Music?, while there’s fire: typically Eeyoreish on It’s A Bad World (no-one makes better
complexity in the burnt-out, end-of-the- use of the word “I”); fragrant and breezy on I Don’t Care. For once,
affair melancholy of Blake’s sighing Love is third wheel, though the whooshing synth line on his Speed
Alcoholiday (“There are things I want to Of Light sounds like a whole new thing for Teenage Fanclub and
BACK STORY: do/But I don’t know if they will be with Take The Long Way Round could almost be their motto.
“GUITAR But walking away from Britpop did not insulate TFC from its
GEORGE” you”). In British indie’s annus mirabilis of crash. By the time of Howdy’s release in October 2000, Creation
● Whether or not 1991, Bandwagonesque was in the van. had sunk and their option on the Fannies taken up by Columbia.
George Borowski really
was the “Guitar George”
Then they did what many bands do. Aptly, under its thin skin of sunshine pop, its songwriters were
mentioned in Dire They toured too long and dashed in to taking stock. “Had a name, but now that’s gone,” mourns Blake on
Straits’ Sultans Of Swing record a follow-up laden with fragments Dumb Dumb Dumb. “Motivation is fading,” echoes Love in the
Stefan De Batselier/Idols, georgeborowski.com

(it’s moot), the

Welshman certainly
rather than songs. When it emerged, in Bacharach-y Cul De Sac. They’re fine songs. But Howdy would be
experienced a mid-’90s October 1993, Thirteen sounded slow and Teenage Fanclub’s first and last album for a major.
resurgence, tech-ing on flat. Love’s opener Hang On does just that,
Teenage Fanclub’s Grand
In 1990, in the words of Everything Flows, Teenage Fanclub set
Prix and credited with
for five minutes that feel longer. Blake’s a course they didn’t know; in 2018, Sony’s vinyl reissues illuminate
guitar and bvs on Songs Norman 3 is a great song pissed away, but the first decade of that voyage. Bandwagonesque is the major
From Northern Britain. The Cabbage (I mean, really) said it best: beneficiary – it sounds more open, less indie than a 1991 CD copy.
Check out his Peel fave
1979 single Who Is
“Look in the mirror – I’m a mess.” From the bonus 7-inch singles that come with each LP, unreleased
Innocent? as part of The Yet Thirteen contained the seeds of their Thirteen cast-off Country Song is the biggest treat. Meanwhile, the
Out, or one of his still- recovery. McGinley, a junior partner band endure, delivering predictably good music with pre-Brendan
impassioned live
performances. writing-wise while he’d filled in on drummer Francis MacDonald. But there’s still no map, or plan –
management duties, had delivered except to stay afloat when so many have foundered. Sail on, sailors.

100 MOJO
Wearing denim
wherever they
go: Teenage
Fanclub in 1996
(from left) Gerard
Love, Raymond
McGinley, Norman
Blake, Paul Quinn.
 F I LT E R R E I S SU E S

the slow ballad Misty where to Fogerty’s former band-

mates: if you can’t join ’em,
The Posies Nick Mason
he really shines, blowing his
horn with an elegant and beat ’em. ★★★★ ★★★
luminous lyricism. Will Hodgkinson Frosting On Unattended Luggage
Charles Waring The Beater WARNER MUSIC. CD/DL/LP
OMNIVORE. CD/LP Pink Floyd drummer,
Various The pick of the Seattle raconteur and man of
John Fogerty ★★★★ powerpoppers’ 30th letters’ collected solo s.
★★★★ Planet Beat: From anniversary reissues. Following
his recent
Blue Moon Swamp The Shel Talmy Vaults In 1993, The
re-emergence
BMG. CD/DL/LP
Posies’ Jon
BIG BEAT. CD/DL/LP
Auer and Ken as a band-
Dexter Gordon Creedence main man’s Superb garage punk Stringfellow leader with the
Quartet 1997 solo high point. from Who/Kinks/Crea accepted an retro-Floyd live
Much of producer: a British Pe . offer they act Saucerful Of Secrets, Nick
★★★★ Creedence For his Planet couldn’t refuse – to sub for Mason’s Indian summer
Tokyo 1975 Clearwater label, Shel the late Chris Bell in cursed continues. Unattended
ELEMENTAL. CD/DL/LP Revival’s power-pop legends Big Star’s Luggage gathers his three
Talmy recorded historic solo albums together
Jazz giant’s lost Japanese appeal came a wealth of unexpected reunion. The
event shone a spotlight on in a good-looking box.
concert issued for first time. down not only promising acts,
their recently released third Mason’s debut is the oddity.
to John Fogerty’s feeling for who, indebted
Dexter Gordon’s maiden album, which fed the The twitchy avant-garde pop
raw rock’n’roll, but also to his to the Brit Invasion, sadly never of 1981’s Fictitious Sports was
voyage to the Land Of The voice: alternately menacing anthemic, harmony-soaked,
quite made it. Working out of mostly an outlet for its
Rising Sun in October 1975 and tender, and imbued with chorus-heavy tuneage of
London’s IBC studios with its songwriter, jazz musician Carla
proved problematic for the Raspberries, Cheap Trick and
a Southern weightiness, quite house engineer Glyn Johns Bley, and guest vocalist Robert
then 52-year-old saxophonist Boston through the then-
a feat for a California boy. With and his own Wrecking Crew Wyatt, with Mason playing
– not in terms of playing – Nicky Hopkins on piano, vogue grunge prism. Such
legal issues keeping the band drums and steering the
music, but in regard to finding Bobby Graham on drums and melodic triumphalism was
apart, their former singer project. There’s a greater
suitable accommodation. Jimmy Page on guitar – he balanced by a lyrical depth
At 6 feet 6 inches tall, Gordon made a solo album that went synergy between its
operated an open door policy that remains striking, from
– who had been living in straight to the heart of successors, Profiles (1985)
for young, enthusiastic the wry pop-cultural comment
Denmark since 1963 – wasn’t Creedence’s warm revivalism. and ’87’s music to Donald
hopefuls, with great if not of Flavor Of The Month, to
able to find a hotel bed long Hot Rod Heart is exactly the Cammell’s thriller White
financially viable results. moving child abuse parable
enough to comfortably kind of rockabilly nostalgia its When Mute Tongues Can Of The Eye. Both were
name suggests; Rattlesnake Doncaster’s The First Gear collaborations with 10cc
support his giant frame. crash through Little Willie Speak, to Solar Sister, a rare
Though he may not have slept Highway, a snarling blues admiring-from-afar anthem guitarist Rick Fenn, with whom
John’s Leave My Kitten Alone. Mason was making advertising
very well on the tour, you about a no-good woman, has without creepiness. The Posies
Birkenhead’s The Pathfinders and TV documentary music.
wouldn’t guess it from his the country-funk sleaze of themselves couldn’t shake the
smother their self-penned Why
spectacularly vibrant Down On The Bayou. There curse of Big Star, never The former includes the lilting
in early Beatlesy harmonies.
performance in the company are Proud Mary-like moments, winning the crossover success sing-song Lie For A Lie (sung
Liverpool Cavern regulars The
of fellow US ex-pats, pianist like the cheerful Blueboy, no they deserved, though they’ve by David Gilmour), while the
Dennisons turn in a rough,
Kenny Drew, and drummer shortage of swampy solos, since built an enviable instrumental soundtrack finds
power-driving take on the
Albert ‘Tootie’ Heath, and A Hundred And Ten In discography. Frosting… space for some panoramic
Pomus-Shuman song Lucy
alongside Danish bassist, The Shade, a mournful field remains the jewel of that soundscapes and bluesy
(You Sure Did It This Time).
Niels-Henning Ørsted holler backed with ominous Rugby’s The Liberators’ Gotta crown, its heady pop punch guitar fills to keep the pining
Pedersen. Though Gordon resonance by gospel legends Have You is effusive yeah- and emotional heft as perfect Floyd faithful happy.
serves up his signature bebop The Fairfield Four. Blue Moon yeah-yeah pop. as this music gets. Mark Blake
number, Fried Bananas, it’s on Swamp sent a clear message Lois Wilson Stevie Chick

The Animals
Various ★★★★
Animalisms
★★★★ SECRET. CD/LP

Paradise – The Sound Eric Burdon and Geord

friends come to the en
Of Ivor Raymonde The Animals’ first cha
BELLA UNION. CD/DL/LP By 1966,
Animals
A tribute to an outstanding keyboardist
British arranger. Alan Price had
quit to go solo,
FORMER COCTEAU Twin Simon John Steel was
Raymonde recalls Scott Walker eased out for Nashville Teens
dropping round to his house when he drummer Barry Jenkins, and
Mickie Most’s productions
was five years old. It’s something that gave way to Dylan producer
happened when your father was Ivor Tom Wilson. Despite the
Raymonde, the arranger who shaped changes, Newcastle’s finest
retained their hard-edged ’60s
Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want To Brit-blues dynamic thanks to
Be With You, along with massive the R&B muscle of singer Eric
successes for Billy Fury, Los Bravos Burdon, who was not yet in
and The Walker Brothers, as well as thrall to psychedelics. Price’s
replacement, Dave Rowberry,
other well-tailored musical stylings became melody man to lyricist
for Tom Jones, David Bowie, Ian Burdon on two tracks, but the
Dury, The Honeybus, Helen Shapiro, meat of the album is still R&B/
blues covers like Gin House
Dave Berry and similar notables. Blues and I Put A Spell On You,
This 26-track compilation houses both aced by Nina Simone. Joe
those stellar deliveries plus an Tex, Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson
and John Lee Hooker are also
array of worthy lesser-knowns sourced. Burdon disbanded
by bands like The Flies and the group soon after, retaining
The Majority, most presented only Jenkins for The New
Animals. As on the ’96 CD
in their original mono. reissue, extra tracks from US
Paradise is a veritable treasure Dusty Springfield, version Animalization and the
trove, indeed. first solo pop hit – EP In The Beginning There
arr: Raymonde. Was… plus four stereo mixes
Fred Dellar
Alamy

are included.
Geoff Brown

102 MOJO
 Bass motives: Joe
Osborn and Carol Kaye,
slightly baffled Crew
bassists; (insets) the
4CDs; Tommy Tedesco,
with his guitar, and
drummer Hal Blaine;
the CD pack.

Cuts, features solo recordings by the

It’s a knockout informed by musicians
players. The Crew member who
most profitably stepped out front
was session guitarist Glen Campbell.
A four-disc set celebrates one of After 1967’s By The Time I Get To
the greatest backing bands of the already experienced in hitmaking
and speedy recording – the Phoenix, he outsold many of the
’60s and ’70s. By Geoff Brown. drummer Earl Palmer, for one, artists he’d been backing. He’s
had already played on a mountain represented here by another
Various of Little Richard, Fats Domino atmospheric Jimmy Webb
song, 1968’s Wichita
★★★★ and others’ hits as rock’n’roll was
born at Cosimo Matassa’s studio in Lineman. (Leon Russell, the
The Wrecking Crew New Orleans, and now fired up Richie Wreckers’ other graduate to
ROCKBEAT. CD/LP Valens’ La Bamba and The Routers’ solo stardom, is absent.)
Let’s Go. Another drummer, Hal Crew Cuts starts with
FOLLOWING 2008’s Wrecking Crew Blaine, became ubiquitous in Blaine’s The Beat Goes On, a
documentary, not granted a full theatre not unexpectedly percussive
release until 2015 due to the cost of licensing the ’60s notably for his work on
thunderous Spector hits like version of the Sonny & Cher
the multitude of chart hits recorded by the hit pitched somewhere between the
Wreckers, comes this 4-CD celebration of The Ronettes’ Be My Baby, as
well as wider pop smashes like Buddy Rich Big Band and The
the hardest-hitting studio Crew on the Piltdown Men. Mostly, the Crew let
pulsatingly prolific Hollywood circuit. The Byrds’ Mr Tambourine
Man, The Mamas And The heir hair down in relaxed yet lively
Although director/producer Teddy azz settings: Tommy Tedesco’s
Tedesco, son of Crew guitarist Tommy, had Papas’ Monday Monday, The
Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations fleet-fingered Walking And
been working on the documentary “for Talking; drummer Frank
decades”, Standing In The Shadows Of and God Only Knows, all
Capp’s sprightly swing on
Motown, Paul Justman’s excellent 2002 heard here. Neal Hefti’s Cute; vibist
tribute to The Funk Brothers, the Detroit “There was only one Emil Richards’ Ciao
label’s crack Hitsville studio team, beat them band behind them all,” Bella, for a taste.
to the screen. Thanks to the curiosity of the subtitle asserts, and Many of the Crew
music journalists and fans, interest in it’s sobering to hear the have ceased to Wreck,
unearthing the identities of who was actually 48 familiar yet extra- but this set’s booklet
creating the music behind the groups and ordinarily varied tracks ensures their timeless
singers on Motown, Stax, Atlantic and Chess on the first three CDs. musical wisdom lives on.
hits had been rife since the late ’60s and ’70s. To those mentioned above Tedesco: “There is no
The Wrecking Crew were harder to add The Monkees, Sam money beyond the 5th
pinpoint because they worked for so many Cooke, Cher, Paul Revere fret”; Blaine: “Friend
artists across so many labels that had less & The Raiders, The 5th don’t let friends clap on 1
definable ‘house’ sounds and used several Los Dimension, Harry Nilsson, and 3”. In addition to the
Angeles studios – Capitol, Sound Recorders, Herb Alpert and more. 4-CD pack there is also a
Western, United and Gold Star among them. Interspersed among the double vinyl LP with 36
But over time, prompted by the distinctive music, jokes by musicians tracks, but it loses the
creations of Phil Spector, for example, the and interviews add yet interviews and solo
suspects were unearthed. more colour. projects. The movie is
The records the Crew made were The fourth CD, Crew also out on DVD.

MOJO 103
 Alley Cats: The Pretty
F I L E U N D E R ... Things, 1968-69
(from left) Jon Povey,
Phil May, Dick Taylor,
Wally Waller, Twink.

Sorrow for tomorrow

Psychedelia, the genre that loves presented new boxed set, which has the aficionados, but the purpose of these things
to look back and celebrate an album in mono and stereo, a double album is to let the compiler take you on a trip, and
recorded live at Abbey Road, and throws in Wells knows so much about this era that he
underachiever. By Jim Irvin. four replica pic-sleeve 45s from the period, always digs up something “fresh”.
including Defecting Grey, is a bargain. The title song alone is worth the price of

I
T’S THE 50th anniversary of many
psychedelic milestones this year. In A month later, when 1969 dawned, entry. When we put together a MOJO psych
December 1968 The Pretty Things’ S.F. psychedelia was a fad on the wane. But there compilation in 2000, Try A Little Sunshine
Sorrow ★★★★ (Madfish) was born, the first were still kids getting their first crack at the
was the first track on our list, but we
album-length rock opera. Despite hit studio, moguls looking for a cash-in, or couldn’t license it then, so it’s great to see it
singles, the Pretties had found it hard to lift seasoned beat groups tired of facing grumpy here. Credited to The Factory, a teenage
out of the blues-band box as the Stones had, crowds expecting a happening who wouldn’t power trio from Surrey, it was written and
and tried their darnedest with this bold settle for Sam & Dave sung by John Pantry, IBC
creation when they joined EMI. Their first retreads. There are plenty of Studios engineer and leader
release for the label was Defecting Grey, an all these in esteemed of Peter And The Wolves.
enigmatic five-minute single switch-backing psychonaut David Wells’ The band provide
between Syd Barrett-like verses, backwards new compilation, Try A Little deliciously unhinged
sitars, proto-metal guitars and dreamy Sunshine ★★★★ (Grapefruit), backing, all fuzz guitars and
harmonies. Ambitious if a little try-hard. which, he says, “covers every tumbling drums, which
The same could be levelled at S.F. Sorrow, a aspect of the 1969 British parts for Pantry’s beautiful
moody biography of the titular character, pop sound”, yet this is the chorus melody to shine
recorded between November 1967 and gold and the dross of a with its striking falsetto
September 1968, which brimmed with ideas parade of bell-bottomed section. A practically perfect
and sounds that were bang on trend, indeed flop-stars, the year’s 45, its blustery excitement
ahead of the curve in places, but slightly failures. Some of this stuff similar to Small Faces’
shortchanged the listener in the feel-goods will be familiar to “This is the unmatched Tin Soldier, it
sold nothing. Cue vast prices
department, and came in a horrid sleeve
One or two tracks aside, Pretties’ ps ld and the in today’s market.
is unsettling, peace and love ss of a One other song towers
swapped for angular anxiety. They over the rest, Procol
practically invent heavy metal in Old parade Harum’s minor hit A Salty
Man Going, there’s a hint of prog-to of bell- Dog, so far ahead of them
come in Balloon Burning, Baron
Saturday and I See You, and Well Of bottomed all in confidence, scope
and beauty. That’s the true
Destiny’s closing riff sounds like flop stars.” spirit of ’69 – the year of
Radiohead. Contemporaries includin Abbey Road, Tommy, Led
The Who, Floyd and Bowie duly paid Zeppelin II, King Crimson,
respects when it was unveiled, but E and numerous ground-
fumbled it and S.F. Sorrow failed to c breakers – pop music
Shutterstock

on. Down the years, of course, it has soaring and surging

found its people. A near mint copy g forward, its eye on
£600+ these days, so this beautifull astonishing places.

104 MOJO
 WORLD
B Y D AV I D H U T C H E O N
Bunny Wailer songs full of the specificity
that so fascinated Oliver in
Tohru Aizawa
★★★★ the blues – town and street Quartet
Dubd’sco Vol 1 names, people’s names and
their jobs. Some of the singers
★★★★
DUB STORE. CD/DL/LP
are now familiar, like Blind Boy Tachibana
Bunny’s solo best in Fuller or Bukka White, but BBE. CD/DL/LP
enticing dub format. several are figures whom, Lavish reissue of much
Compared to nearly 60 years later, we still sought-after private p
the more inter- know little or nothing about: from Japan’s golden a
nationally- Lewis Black, Otis Harris, This long-
minded Tallahassee Tight. The pieces lost, often
offerings of from Screening The Blues focus mythologised
his former on themes Oliver examined outing
vocal partners, Bunny Wailer’s in the book: gambling, sex, epitomises
solo output has always been or the boxer Joe Louis, Japan’s febrile
distinctly leftfield, his late-’70s vivaciously championed embrace of jazz. The Numata-
heyday typically conjuring a by Memphis Minnie. based student quartet offset
meditative, pensive sound. Tony Russell their studies playing bijou
Released in small quantities in club Mokuba, before wealthy
Jamaica on Bunny’s Solomonic businessman Ikujiroh
label, 1978’s Dubd’sco Vol 1 has Tachibana decided to finance
exquisite examples of Mr their debut LP, chiefly as his
Wailer’s roots peak, expertly ultra-flash business card.
dubbed by Sylvain Morris at Recorded live in Tachibana’s
Harry J and Karl Pitterson at basement in 1975, it’s an
Dynamics. The whole album unbridled joyride from start
is excellent, the perceptive
deconstructions allowing us
to finish. Over four long-ish Various
tracks, the band’s galvanic
to hear the material with new rhythm section (Tetsuya ★★★★
ears: Battering Down Sentence Morimura, Konzoh Watanabe) Listen All Around
has a smattering of plaintive set a potent base for its DUST TO DIGITAL. CD
melodica and a mournful
clavinet; Roots Radics Rockers Mickey Baker bandleader to speedily tip his
Field recordings from 1950-58
cap to Masabumi Kikuchi and
And Reggae bounces Bunny’s ★★★★ McCoy Tyner while Coltrane’s
capture a guitar revolution coming to fruition
vocals between the speakers
amid rollicking drum rolls
Return Of The spinning ghost haunts BOLDLY SUBTITLED ‘The Golden Age Of Central And East African
Kyochiroh Morimura’s sax Music’ – the prime alchemists had another two or three decades
and a rousing horn fanfare; Wildest Guitar ahead of them – this is a treat for fans of rough’n’rootsy
masterclasses. The no-thrills,
Armagideon is centred on JASMINE. CD/DL
unquantised production is an Congolese rumba, capturing the moment the bands
ghostly guitar pickings, sparse Solo highlights of 1950s unexpected boon; a furious reinterpreting Cuban music (guitars replacing horn sections and
hand drums and subsonic session guitar king. closing run through Jobim pianos) started forging their own unique strain of son in Congo,
bass, and a stripped-down and Bonfá’s Samba De Orfeu Kenya, Zanzibar and Tanganyika. Newly remastered, the dynamic
Dreamland reveals peculiar Mickey And Sylvia’s 1956 hit
Love Is Strange is an erotic providing a palpable sense sounds the revered ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey recorded still
keyboard overdubs. Play loud of the Quartet seizing their sound gloriously fresh, 60-plus years on. Though the first star of
for maximum effect. masterpiece of early rock’n’roll.
The duo’s male half was Mickey chance, if not their destiny, rumba, Wendo Kolosoy, is absent – he was already a big name by
David Katz with both hands. the end of the 1940s – he is barely missed amid the sense of
Baker, whose lead guitar stung
like a bee. Originally a jazz Andy Cowan adventure as kids pick up three chords and six strings in his
guitarist, he discovered he wake, and seeming old-timers such as Bakia Pierre play rhythms
Various made more money by (on Gitari Na Congo) that sound as ancient as the hills.

★★★★ “bending strings”, code for

playing the blues, and he
Various
ALSO RELEASED
The Meaning Of The became an in-demand New ★★★★
Blues: The Legacy Of York rhythm & blues session Disque Debs Paolo Conte Kamal Keila
Paul Oliver 1927-2017 ace. (Rolling Stone placed International
JASMINE. CD
him at 53 of the 100 Greatest
STRUT. CD/DL/LP
★★★★ ★★★★
Guitarists.) This comp collects Zazzarazàz Muslims And
A tribute to a lifetime’ his solo instrumental album for Excellent introduction e
curiosity about the bl Atlantic, The Wildest Guitar, pivotal Guadeloupe la
BLUE WRASSE. CD/DL Christians
Just one new song, HABIBI FUNK. CD/DL/LP
This gives CD plus various rare recording From his but this 4-CD
form to Blues dates. Joined by other first-call clothes shop’s Still topical (lyrical
retrospective (there
Fell This cats like drummer Panama concerns include
backroom in is also an eight-disc
Morning (1960) Francis, pianist Champion Jack African unity,
Pointe-à-Pitre, version) feels like an
agricultural
and most of Dupree and saxophonist Sam Guadeloupe, attempt to sum up the career of
revolutions and an
Screening The ‘The Man’ Taylor, Baker’s Henri Debs ran the 81-year-old lawyer (Italy’s
end to sectarian violence), the
Blues (1968), LPs compiled to combo of feral tonality and his Disques Debs label and hangdog answer to Sinatra or
10 tracks here (split between
illustrate Oliver’s books of the controlled chops is thrilling. studio from where he shaped Cohen). In addition to 45 tracks
English and Arabic) were the
same name. The former was He was also a melodic master, the island’s creole sounds from of Conte, there’s a disc of covers,
fruits of two Sudanese radio
one of the earliest reissues of picking poetically in standards the late ’50s. In the beginning but it’s his classics – Madeleine,
sessions recorded in the 1990s.
Southern blues from the 1920s like Third Man Theme and Via Con Me – you’ll return to.
his group were the house While Keila’s voice hints at the
and ’30s, and remains an Autumn Leaves. band, and their saxophonist, neighbouring musical
absorbing collection, the Michael Simmons Edouard Benoit, was the Jess Sah Bi powerhouse that was Ethiopia,
arranger. When he needed & Peter One his band sounds as if they
have just blown in from
In the ’Loupe:
more space for recording he ★★★ 1960s Memphis.
utilised the local cinema or
Henri (right) and the club Boukarou in Le
Our Garden Needs
Philippe Debs.
Gosier where his band had Its Flowers Konkere Beats
a Saturday night residency. AWESOME TAPES FROM AF
CD/DL/LP
★★★
This first in a series Yoruba!
documenting Debs’ label A sizeable hit in
Ivory Coast in the SOUL JAZZ. CD/DL/LP
output – over 300 singles,
200 albums – covers 1960 to 1980s (though on Taking it back to
’72. Highpoints: Debs’ Douce bootleg cassettes, the roots of the
so only the pirates most influential
Kombass, an exuberant mesh
profited), the latest Awesome of all musical forms,
of colourful jazz and calypso; this collection of,
Tapes discovery is the label’s
Sydney Lèrèmon’s You You as the subtitle has it, “songs and
most unlikely to date: socially
Matayango, a mesmeric conscious country-folk featuring rhythms for the Yoruba gods”,
gwoka-folk built around slide guitar, harmonica and is, in several senses, the big
chanting, handclaps and ridiculously catchy melodies. bang. Nigerian master drummers
the gwo ka (hand drums); Having filled West African lay down the grooves that
Orchestre Esperanza & Jean stadiums on the back of it, squired the blues, soul, rumba
Hugh Tracey

Leroy’s Ou Pas Bel, a lively guitarist Peter One now lives and jazz, singers give praise.
flourish of horns, percussion in Nashville, which makes Excellent sleevenotes argue this
and soulful vocals. perfect sense. was “the first world music”. DH
Lois Wilson

MOJO 105
 F I LT E R R E I S SU E S

Don Ellis
★★★★
Shock Treatment/
Autumn
BGO. CD

Excellent two-fer from a key

purveyor of experimental
big band jazz.
A veteran of New York’s jazz
avant-garde, as well as the
The Mike Third Stream movement that Various
blended jazz and classical,
Westbrook trumpeter Don Ellis led ★★★★
Concert Band 20-member ensembles in the Music City Blues &
1960s and ’70s and obliterated Rhythm
★★★ the clichés that diminished the ACE. CD/DL
The Last Night big band concept as corny
Blues unearthed from the
At The Old Place New Year’s Eve wallpaper in
vaults of the Berkeley,
Music City
CADILLAC. CD
the ears of young people. (His bluesman: Roy
orchestra frequently California label. Hawkins AKA
Historic British jazz concert performed at rock concerts.) Between 1953 and ’76, Ray Mr Undertaker.
released for the first time. This 2-CD set joins albums Dobard’s Music City released
When Ronnie Scott relocated from 1968 and ’69, the first 86 singles which plotted the The first album to feature all
his world-famous Soho jazz produced by visionary John trajectory of black music from Willie Nelson Gary Brooker/Keith Reid
club from Gerrard to Frith
Street in 1966, he still had 18
Hammond, the second by
renaissance rocker Al Kooper.
blues to funk. Dobard wasn’t a
fan of the former genre,
★★★ material, the former’s stately
Things To Remember piano introduces the
months to run on the lease at Ellis often amplified his horn however, and perhaps that’s grandiose title track as it
the venue’s original site. and used electronic aids like why he left such a lot of rich – The Pamper Demos progresses through
Redubbed ‘The Old Place’, the time delays – heresy among blues material on the cutting REAL GONE MUSIC. CD/DL/LP movements that lean heavily
basement club became a jazz jazz purists. He utilised room floor – 22 of the 28 on classical arrangement.
Willie is taken back to
laboratory for some of the UK’s dissonance and wildly varied tracks here are previously Brooker’s vocals range
basics.
more progressive players time signatures and cross- unissued. Highpoints are through warm, imperious and
before it closed on May 25, pollinated with Indian, Latin many and include Gloria Jean These 28 world-weary, as the band
1968. Its final gig was by a and country music, yet never Pitts’ 1955 I Don’t Stand No performances performances establish
10-piece band led by rising stopped swinging. Though Quittin’, a tough Etta James- document the Procol’s mid-to-late-’70s
composer/arranger/pianist felled by a bad heart in 1978, style R&B dancer that eclipses demos Willie template and Grabham’s
Mike Westbrook that included his recordings remain ahead her re-recording with Dave Nelson made guitar pungently punctuates
in its ranks 23-year-old of their time. Bartholomew released on for Nashville’s stories of disquiet (Toujours
saxophonist John Surman. Michael Simmons Imperial the following year. Pamper Music publishing L’Amour), life’s
Never before issued, the Also recommended are Roy company in the early ‘60s, disappointments and
concert shows how Westbrook Hawkins’ Here Lies My Love when he was still a penniless betrayals (A Rum Tale), tele’s
was able to write carefully (alt take), which captures the songwriter, attempting to stay tyranny (TV Ceasar) and STDs
arranged ensemble pieces Texas singer and pianist afloat by knocking out his (A Souvenir Of London),
that also reflected the unique delivering the label boss’s wares on an almost daily basis among others. Bonus tracks
personalities of its soloists. As murder ballad with a stirring in order to put food on the are five takes from the Ball era,
well as original tunes, intensity, and Alvin Smith’s table. Amazingly, his efforts while the DVD has a Belgian
Westbrook also skilfully Brand New Baby, a breezy resulted in an array of songs TV show, Face au Public.
reconfigures two jazz swing over which he that helped change the face of Geoff Brown
standards, Lover Man and bibulously boasts, “I used to country music, the tally
Flying Home, both of which be a wino now it’s champagne, including Hello Walls, Crazy,
are superbly rendered. whiskey and gin.” Funny (How Time Slips Away)
Charles Waring Lois Wilson and others that have become
standards. These are bare
bones affairs, but stripped
VINYL PACKAGE OF THE MONTH back and naked in terms of
orchestral claddings, and
aided by a superb remastering
Various Seven double-A 7-inch Your Phrasing Is Bad (an job, they sound vital and
singles, two acts on each eye-watering £2k alone – timeless – Night Life, for
A Kaleidoscope – 14 tunes asking nearly not worth it) is phased to instance, even gains
something in terms of
Of Sounds £12k at current prices – in phuck. Fleur De Lys, downhome blues feel.
replica generic bags, Open Mind and Birds Fred Dellar Fiery Furnaces
UMC. 7-INCH BOX SET
packed with an Birds channel Hendrix ★★★
Psychedelicist supreme, authoritative booklet. and Cream, Kaleidoscope Blueberry Boat
Phil S di J C ’ Bl k M i fli i h Fl di Procol Harum ROUGH TRADE. LP

★★ The Friedbergers’s epic folly,

back on vinyl.
d Hotel
. CD/DVD For those who have only
encountered Eleanor
er re-release sch e Friedberger in solo mode,
y Brooker and much of her early work in the
n. Fiery Furnaces may prove a
Fewer checked shock. Emerging in 2003 as a
in to 1973’s rococo adjunct to the garage
Grand Hotel rock boom, Friedberger and
than had her capricious brother
frequented Matthew soon began to
Procol’s five dismantle any orthodox career
ing studio albums, but ambitions expected of them.
prog grandeur Hence this second album,
mained intact as they a manic and frequently
achieved a satisfyingly impenetrable suite of songs,
cohesive sound. possibly about pirates, where
Written while touring fine tunes are Frankensteined
behind their biggest into prog epics; all carnival
Live With The Edmonton organ, squalling guitar
ony Orchestra, initial punctuation and relentless key
ngs disappointed, changes. The self-conscious,
st Dave Ball left and was self-destructive quirkiness of
d by Mick Grabham. the endeavour remains

106 MOJO
 REISSUES EXTRA

frustrating, 14 years on, but available only to those with

there’s still much to enjoy for fat wallets and a red, green
listeners prepared and gold deerstalker: the
to circumnavigate the heartfelt Calling, recorded in
disruptions of Matthew, a man 1968 by 15-year-old Willie
predisposed to try and make (Armagideon Time) Williams,
Stephen Malkmus look like illustrates how Haile Selassie’s
Liam Gallagher. Start, perhaps, visit to Jamaica in 1966
with Spaniolated, where reverberated among the
Eleanor’s heroic composure island’s youth. The presence of
offers a preview of where she Alton Ellis illustrates that even Tim Buckley Jilted John The Great Society
ended up on this year’s Studio One’s Mr Soul felt the
excellent Rebound. reality wave – Almost Anything ★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★
John Mulvey is a divinely voiced declaration The Troubadour True Love Stories Live At The Matrix
that “The time has come for a
change” – while Horace Andy’s Concerts 1969 BOSS TUNEAGE RETRO. DL/LP 1966
1974 single Illiteracy is another DEMON. LP Forty years on, Graham Fellows’ FLOATING WORLD. CD
subversive, timorous soft-punk A new set culled from June/July
lesser-spotted Brentford Road Buckley in steamy, improvised concept album about ’66 tapes, contemporaeous with
star turn. Diligent sleevenotes form over two September nights adolescent confusion, fumbling
and superior sound make this at the famed Los Angeles club, the live recordings issued by
and love’s cruel jokes. Comedic, Columbia in 1968 after Grace
the complete package. plus rehearsal set, on six but with Fellows’ familiar
Keith Cameron heavyweight long-players. All Slick struck gold with Jefferson
fractures of madness and Airplane. Raw sound, but Slick’s
previously available on separate pathos. Includes a facsimile of
CDs, but great notes and quality voice is a pure wonder and
the original ‘Mice & Ladders’ Someone To Love has a menace
pressings add top value. CP boardgame. IH
Various the Airplane’s version lacked. KC
★★★
Manfred Mann Got The Blues
★★★★ UNIVERSAL. CD
Subtitled: ‘80 All Time
The Five Faces Of… Classics’ on 4-CDs – fo d
ARTIST APPROVED. CD/LP
a half hours with the b
5-4-3-2… countdown to the Much of this is
Manfreds’ first four albums. just what you’d
Five jazz and blues enthusiasts expect: Boom
– black polo necks, some Boom, Hound
beards and specs, few smiles Dog, Baby
– Manfred Mann actually made Please Don’t The Moldy Pink Floyd
good use of the album format. Go, The Thrill Is Gone…
Peaches Suede
Uneasily shoehorned into ’60s Muddy, Wolf, Buddy Guy, ★★★★ ★★★★
pop on singles, none of their Jimmy Reed, all the Kings, ★★★ Relics
early hits appeared on this Chuck’n’Bo, Sonny’n’Brownie,
The Moldy Peaches Dog Man Star
1964 debut LP as it ranged Mississippi John Hurt and PINK FLOYD RECORDS. LP
DEMON. LP
ROUGH TRADE. LP Remastered on 180gm
across blues (Howlin’ Wolf’s Memphis Minnie, Skip James From 1994, Suede’s early definer,
Smokestack Lightnin’), R&B and Etta James, Guitar Slim Kimya Dawson and Adam plastic with its original Nick full of epic indie-prog and
(Bo Diddley’s Bring It To and Slim Harpo and Fats Green’s heroically under- Mason-drawn cover happily blazing tunes of languorous
Jerome), jazz-soul (Cannonball Domino… But some isn’t, produced debut goes for silly restored, let Floyd’s fab 1971 suburban fury. Why, we hear you
Adderley’s Sack O’ Woe), and which produces ear-perking money on original vinyl. Now, compilation of 1967-69 material ask, this umpteenth vinyl
six originals among the 14 segues like Sonny Boy sane folks too can marvel at its take you back to simpler days reissue? It’s pressed on ‘Olive
songs. The jazz inclinations of Williamson to John Fahey to pin-sharp lyrics and Jonathan when this LP was the easiest Green’ wax, to compliment the
Mann (keys), Mike Vickers Billie Holiday, or Robert Richman-level comic timing. A way to hear paisley-blouse-era prone nudist photo on the
shambolic, anti-folk landmark Syd singles. And The Nile Song cover. Only from HMV. IH
(reeds) and Mike Hugg (drums) Johnson to Ramsey Lewis to
well worth £20 but no more. JB is heavy. IH
further established them as Roscoe Holcomb. Even in such
one of the more musicianly eclectic company, a few
chart bands on 1965’s follow- choices are hard to explain
up Mann Made. while ’67’s (Lee Hazlewood, Steppenwolf,
instrumental set Soul Of Mann, Eric Bibb), and Ray Charles’s
included their takes on My set-closing Goodbye/We’ll Be
Generation and Satisfaction. Together Again deluges the
Their chart 45s were listener with icing sugar. But if
segregated onto 1966’s Mann you’re facing a long solo
Made Hits. All four albums are journey, this will prove an
back on the shelves, in mono, entertaining and sometimes
and on vinyl for the first time provocative companion.
in over 30 years. Tony Russell
Geoff Brown
Caetano Veloso Various Talisman
COMING ★★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★
Various NEXT MONTH... Transa On The Soul Side Nothing Change:
★★★★ Alice Coltrane, Paul McCartney, ELEMENTAL. LP KENT SOUL. CD/DL The Best Of 1977-2018
Black Man’s Pride 2 Orbital, Soft Machine, Mudhoney, Exiled by the Brazilian military Expanding 1983’s 16-song vinyl SUGAR SHACK. CD/DL
Prince, Swamp Dogg, Joe junta along with Gilberto Gil, the LP, these 26 songs from the ’60s Four decades of Bristol reggae
SOUL JAZZ. CD/DL/LP
Bonamassa, Lemon Twigs master Tropicálista’s second are a delight, full of expressive stalwarts’ warm roots stylings,
Subtitled ‘Righteous A e (pictured below), UB40, Paul London album, from 1972, is a singing on both dancers and with ’81 Peel fave Dole Age
Sons And Daughters O ’: Weller, Spiritualized, Chaka poignant classic. Veloso’s hybrid weepies. Nicely sequenced, no joined by strong early cuts when
17 proto-roots reggae s. Khan, Low and more… of Brazilian pop and US/UK folk duds among the 10 extra tracks the group traded as Revelation
The combin- rock was never so elegant, nor either – The Magnificent Men, Rockers. Recent reunion-era cuts
ation of the so emotionally pertinent. JM Bobby Womack et al. GB sit well in the mix. KC
Studio One
label and
Jamaica’s

Rastafarian black
emergent RATINGS & FORMATS
consciousness yielded an Your guide to the month’s best music is now even more definitive with our handy format guide.
abundance of sublime music CD COMPACT DISC DL DOWNLOAD ST STREAMING LP VINYL
– certainly enough to justify
a second volume of the MC CASSETTE DVD DIGITAL VIDEO DISC C IN CINEMAS BR BLU-RAY
excellent 2017 roots dig Black
Man’s Pride. Once again, it’s
about deep selections and ★★★★★ ★★★★ ★★★ ★★ ★ ✩
thematic presentation. Some MOJO CLASSIC EXCELLENT GOOD DISAPPOINTING BEST AVOIDED DEPLORABLE
tracks are so rare they’ve been

MOJO 107
 BURIED TRE A

tion Moon, Don’t Come Up Tonight.

CREDITS The next year, she moved to Manhat-
Tracks: Moon, tan, waitressed, became a regular at
Don’t Come Up jazz clubs and sang with Chick Corea,
Tonight / Why Can’t
I Come To You / You
Bill Evans and Ben Webster. As a white
Thrill Me / Sad Am I, woman, her relationship with Sun
Glad Am I / Why Is Ra’s drummer Clifford Jarvis led to
Love Such A Funny
Thing / I Can’t
her family disowning her. Then,
Forget You / You Albert Ayler introduced her to
Loved Me / Black Is ESP-Disk founder Bernard Stollman.
The Color Of My
True Love’s Hair
“Albert had heard me singing,” she
Personnel: Patty recalls. “I was invited to where his
Waters (voice, parents lived, and we just sat and
piano). Black Is The talked with Bernard.” Stollman
Color Of My True
Love’s Hair only: arranged for her to record what
Burton Greene became Sings.
(piano, piano Pianist Greene was brought in by
harp), Tom Price
(percussion), Steve Stollman. “I got the vibration that he
Tintweiss (bass), wanted me to be an influence on her,
Patty Waters to get her more free,” he remembers.
(voice).
Producer: Patty
“I was really interested in prepared
Waters (arranger), piano. Patty was singing very
Richard L. Alderson melodically, so I had a little garbage
(engineer) can cover which I dropped on the
Recorded: RLA
Sound Studios, [piano] strings. She was shocked. I
New York City, dropped it again and again. Then she
December 19, 1965 went out on the word ‘black…’”.
Chart Peak: none Greene sees the session as political.
Available: ESP
German CD reissue “She was a quiet, white, diminutive
(2009) lady but she announced the black
revolution,” he asserts. “Black Is The
Black is the colour: Color… was really on the money about what
Patty Waters, was about to explode. Within six months, the
“on the money riots happened: New York, Detroit, Los
about what was to
explode” in the ’60s. Angeles. It was an explosion of black
consciousness and she announced it as far as
I’m concerned on that record.”
“I didn’t say that I was political when
people asked me, but looking back on it, it

Jazz from the abyss was,” says Waters. “Art is a sign of the times,
and my art was a sign of the times.”
Sings was housed in a sleeve with what
This month’s communiqué from Waters took Black Is The Color… into the looked, incongruously, like a high-school
the haunted dancehall: intense, underworld by whispering, cooing and almost yearbook headshot. It was soon followed by
hissing the lyrics, weaving them around a the more measured College Tour, recorded
free vocalisations which sustained melody deconstructed via Burton Greene’s during a series of April 1966 live dates with
the young Patti Smith. prepared piano. Just before the seven-minute other ESP artists. After that, Waters travelled
mark, joined by scrabbling bass and drums, around Europe, appeared without a credit on
Patty Waters she again begins riffing on the word “black”. the 1969 Marzette Watts Ensemble album, and
Sings From here on, shrieking, moaning and moved to California to raise the son which
ESP-DISK, 1966
murmuring take over to goosepimpling effect. Clifford Jarvis had fathered. She did not
It ends, harrowingly, with unfettered record again until 1996. Of her years away

B
Y 1966, New York’s ESP-Disk was an screaming. Commenting online, bassist Steve from music, she says, “I didn’t have the
established haven for free jazz. The label Tintweiss recalled the recording. “Patty was opportunity. No one said, Come and record.”
had issued albums by Albert Ayler, swinging her arms so furiously that she almost Despite this failure to cross over, admirers
Ornette Coleman, Pharaoh Sanders and the knocked over the isolation booth with the red were listening. Patti Smith’s 1971 poem
even less categorisable Sun Ra. Patty Waters’ light and little window that she was put in.” autobiography cites Patty alongside Bartók
debut Sings was recognisably jazz, but it was Today, asked if her vocal style owed and Hank Williams in a list of the music which
still unlike anything else from ESP’s catalogue. anything to her free jazz labelmates’ approach- moved her while growing up. Diamanda Galás
Side one of the LP featured seven original es to their instruments, Waters replies in the also named her as an inspiration, while
songs on which Waters accompanied herself affirmative: “Of course, my inspiration was voice-explorers Joan La Barbara and Linda
on piano. The opening cut Moon, Don’t Albert Ayler and John Coltrane.” Long pauses Sharrock drew from the same well. Yoko Ono
Come Up Tonight set the tone: the voice was between words imply that reflecting on the far is another who may have been influenced.
intimate yet shot-through with unease, as she mid-’60s is not easy for her. Yet looking back on Sings, Patty seems
crooned, “Moon, don’t come up tonight… Patty Waters was born in rural Iowa in cautious. “I appreciate the good reception,”
©Chuck Stewart Photography LLC

my man has gone away and left me with a 1945. She studied piano and she says. “I was surprised it is
broken heart.” Side two, meanwhile, was began singing while at high something that people like.
taken up by a startling 14-minute version of school, and by 18 was “My art was It’s like a painting, once you’ve
the Scottish-via-Appalachia folk song Black Is performing with dance bands. finished you don’t go back and
The Color Of My True Love’s Hair. Billie Holiday was a favourite a sign of the do it again. But I can’t say I’m
At that point, Nina Simone’s stately singer. In San Francisco in times.” comfortable with that album.
rendition from 1959 was the benchmark 1963, she saw Miles Davis, and PATTY WATERS Hearing it is very emotional.”
interpretation. By way of unnerving contrast, told him about her composi- Kieron Tyler

108 MOJO
 PRESENTS

The Cardigans
PLAYING GRAN TURISMO IN FULL
December 2018
Mon 03 Manchester O2 Apollo
Tue 04 Glasgow O2 Academy
Thu 06 Birmingham O2 Academy
Fri 07 London Eventim Apollo
AEGPRESENTS.CO.UK AXS.COM
AEG PRESENTS BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH UTA PRESENTS

RICHARD THOMPSON
WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOAN SHELLEY
THE ‘13 RIVERS’ TOUR
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018
Thu 11 Oct LIVERPOOL Philharmonic
Fri 12 Oct LEEDS Irish Centre
Sat 13 Oct PERTH Concert Hall
Mon 15 Oct CANTERBURY Marlowe
Tue 16 Oct LONDON Barbican
Wed 17 Oct BATH Forum
Thu 18 Oct NOTTINGHAM Royal Concert Hall
Sat 20 Oct STOKE ON TRENT Victoria Hall
Sun 21 Oct MANCHESTER Opera House
Mon 22 Oct YORK Grand Opera House
Tue 23 Oct HULL City Hall
Wed 24 Oct GATESHEAD Sage Gateshead
Fri 26 Oct BIRMINGHAM Town Hall
Sat 27 Oct SOUTHEND Cliffs Pavilion
Sun 28 Oct OXFORD New Theatre
Tue 30 Oct CAMBRIDGE Corn Exchange
Wed 31 Oct SALISBURY City Hall
Thu 1 Nov BEXHILL De La Warr Pavilion
Fri 2 Nov HIGH WYCOMBE Swan
Sat 3 Nov WOKING The New Victoria

SPECIAL TOUR PREVIEWS IN AUGUST!

Fri 10 August TORQUAY Princess Theatre
Thu 23 August RICHMOND Theatre

Full tour details at serious.org.uk/Thompson

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MYTICKET.CO.UK
 Up the creek:The Allman
Brothers Band, 1969 (from
left) Berry Oakley, Butch
Trucks (standing), Jaimoe
Johanson, Gregg Allman,
Duane Allman, Dickey Betts.

10 The Allman
Brothers
Band Seven Turns
EPIC 1990 CD, £8.84
You Say: “A blues-rock tour
de force and more… won-
derful songwriting.” Brad
Guest, via e-mail
Guitarist/singer Warren
Haynes joined the Allmans in
1989 and contributed to
the band adopting a more
metallic, harder rock sound.
While not to every fan’s taste,
there’s no denying his talent.
Seven Turns, the band’s first
studio effort in nine years, was
also the first album to feature
him. In addition to crunchy
headbangers, Haynes and
Betts co-wrote the jazz-fusion
instrumental True Gravity,
while Dickey Betts and
keyboardist Johnny Neel
contribute Low Down Dirty
Mean, a gritty Southern rocker
that alternates twixt Delta
blues and a monster shuffle
with a killer slide guitar and
Gregg growling one of his
strongest vocals.

CAST
YOUR VOTES
This month you
chose your Top 10
Allman Brothers

The Allman Band albums. Next

month we want
your Dinosaur Jr
Top 10. Send your

Brothers Band selections to www.

mojo4music.com or
email your Top 10 to
mojo@bauermedia.
The Daddies Of Southern Rock.
By Michael Simmons.
Johanny ‘Jaimoe’ Johanson on
drums and, eventually, Gregg. They
com with the
subject ‘How To Buy
Dinosaur Jr’ and
4 The Allman
Brothers
Band Brothers
created a completely original we’ll print the best
And Sisters

B
Y 1969, guitarist Duane Allman was already one template: twin guitars playing in comments.
CAPRICORN 1973,
of the most respected American studio harmony, a rumbling, tumbling CD REMASTERED 2013, £5.99
musicians, a Southern white boy who polyrhythm of percussion and Gregg’s voice, that You Say: “Their best studio
specialised in soul music and tracks that called for a straddled blue-eyed soulman and rock screamer. The album. Betts steps up to the
swampy, funky vibe. He’d be featured on sessions by latter was not only one of rock’s greatest singers, but plate as a songwriter.” Ben L
Connor, MOJO Facebook
Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Boz Scaggs and later also a songscribe of depth and hooks. Those of us
After Oakley’s death and with
with Aretha Franklin and Derek And The Dominos. lucky enough to have caught the original Allman new Brothers Chuck Leavell on
Allman’s slide guitar work in particular was unrivalled: Brothers Band line-up witnessed its finest era. The piano and Lamar Williams on
he packed more information and feeling into a single ABB would play for hours, stretching out fiery bass, the ABB released what
note than most rock guitarists could muster in a improvisations through inner/outer space. some early fans consider their
last stellar studio album.
cluster of crowded soloing. (These recordings can be Duane and Oakley were killed in motorcycle Leavell in particular added a
heard on Rounder Records’ 2013 accidents in 1971/72, ending the fresh layer to the group’s
box Skydog.) But Duane wanted his golden era. The band would break- sound with long, rippling, clas-
own band. “They played up and reconvene with others over sical-influenced lines – he
remains one of rock’s finest
The original concept was fully for hours, the years until their final show in kings of the 88s. Once again,
formed in Allman’s imagination: two 2014. Gregg’s death in 2017 from Dickey Betts was conjuring
lead guitarists, two drummers and stretching liver cancer ended any hopes of a classics, notably Ramblin’ Man,
the band’s only Top 10 hit that
brother Gregg on vocals and organ.
Jam sessions began in ’69 in
out fiery reunion, but their legacy endures. To
quote from Gregg’s Midnight Rider,
lives on as a country music
mainstay. His instrumental
Jacksonville, Florida with Dickey improvisations the road goes on forever – a lyric Jessica sports one of the
band’s catchiest hooks and
Getty (2)

Betts on second axe, Berry Oakley through inner/ that symbolises their extraordinary became the theme for the
on bass, Butch Trucks and Jai accomplishments. BBC’s Top Gear.
outer space…”
110 MOJO
 H OW T O B U Y

9 The Allman
Brothers
Band Hittin’
8 The Allman
Brothers
Band
7 The Allman
Brothers
Band
6 The Allman
Brothers
Band
Peakin’ At
5 The Allman
Brothers
Band Live At Live From The Allman
The Note The Beacon Ludlow Garage 1970 A&R Studios, Brothers Band
SANCTUARY 2003 CD, £19.61 EPIC 2000 CD, £12.99 UMC 2016 CD, £11.53 New York, ATCO/ CAPRICORN 1969,
REMASTERED CD 2000, £5.50
You Say: “Definitive proof You Say: “In transition… on You Say: “Duane-era genius.” August 26, 1971 You Say: “Where it all
that they still had it… will fire.” Justin Gibbs, via e-mail Dave McAllister, via e-mail
ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND RECORDING began.” Bill Miller, via e-mail
bring a tear to your eye.” COMPANY (IMPORT) 2016 CD, £11.73
Peter Frith, via e-mail This live set is a fave of many A considerable sub-set of fans
latter-day fans, recorded at maintain that Duane-era ABB You Say: “Searing!” Vince The ABB had been rehearsing
All ABB records are showcases New York’s Beacon Theatre is unsurpassable. The most Greenwood, via e-mail and gigging non-stop, thus
for the mandatory menu offer- where the band held an annual hardcore Duane partisans their eponymously titled first
ing of top-shelf guitar playing. residency that spanned often ignore recordings that Recorded four months after At album was recorded and
The band’s final studio album decades. It’s Betts’ final ABB don’t include him. There are Fillmore East, this live radio mixed in two weeks. While
– a fan favourite – kicks off album, as well as the recording many fine live recordings broadcast shows off a group initially it sold poorly, it was
with Firing Line, featuring debut of Butch’s nephew, that feature the master, that some say achieved the a solid debut. The musical
thrilling duelling guitars by 20-year-old Derek Trucks, as including Live At The Atlanta impossible, when constant sophistication of players in
Warren Haynes and Derek a full-fledged Brother. The International Pop Festival work made them even tighter. their early to mid-twenties is
Trucks – and the remaining phenomenal slide guitarist (Johnny Winter guests) and (In 1970 they spent 300 days startling. In addition to blues
tracks deliver fabulous fretting brought swingier and world Live From A&R Studios (see on the road, the gigs famed influences (they cover Muddy
by the two, both “hittin’ the music influences to the mix, selection six). This 2-CD set for their marathon length.) Waters’ Trouble No More), the
note” as the group’s longtime and a sensitivity and subtlety captures the group on a Both Gregg’s vocals on melodic, harmonic and
motto goes. And whereas the some thought had been particularly ferocious night T-Bone Walker’s Stormy rhythmic variation reveals
quality and consistency of the lacking. The album’s closer, in Cincinnati. (Duane even Monday Blues and Duane’s the influence of jazzmen like
band’s songwriting had been Betts’ instrumental High contributes a rare, propulsive cover of murdered R&B sax Coltrane and Roland Kirk. The
flagging since the mid-’70s, Falls, is a Santana-esque vocal on John Lee Hooker’s legend King Curtis’s instru- twin guitars of Duane and
they deliver some beauties highlight – blending Latin Dimples.) The second disc mental Soul Serenade are mas- Betts alternate between hov-
here, particularly Gregg and rhythms with jazz-fusion and is comprised of one thrilling terclasses in dynamics. For a ering and cutting like knives,
Haynes’ ballad Desdemona. showcasing percussionist 44-minute performance of band that could rattle the while Gregg was already an
The cover of Jagger & Marc Quiñones and the mus- Mountain Jam, the band’s roadhouse floors, they chan- accomplished songwriter as
Richards’ Heart Of Stone fits cularity and lyricism of Derek’s instrumental take on a nelled the power of under- heard in future classics
Gregg’s voice perfectly. singular phrasing. Donovan song. statement with feeling too. Dreams and Whipping Post.

NOW DIG THIS

3 The Allman
Brothers
Band
2 The Allman
Brothers
Band
Idewild South Eat A Peach
ATCO/CAPRICORN 1970, CAPRICORN 1972,
DELUXE EDITION 2015, £18.01 CD REMASTERED 1998, £4.49
There’s little video footage
You Say: “Boasts virtuoso You Say: “A monumental
from The Allman Brothers
playing and songwriting of live/studio set… all their
Band with Duane, though
incredible quality.” Chris flavours are here.” Will
there is a professionally shot,
Anderson, via e-mail Fitzsimmons, via e-mail
well recorded show from
Joined by vet producer Tom The Allmans’ first post-Duane 1970 at the Fillmore East
Dowd, the ABB’s second album release, although he’s on viewable on YouTube. For
has an extra sheen of profes- three-quarters of the long- latter day ABB in concert, you
sionalism. In addition to
Gregg’s gorgeous, haunting
ballads Midnight Rider and
player. It served to remind
fans that while Duane was
irreplaceable, Dickey is a
1The Allman Brothers Band
At Fillmore East
CAPRICORN 1971, CD REMASTERED 1998, £4.99
should check out Live At The
Beacon Theatre (Sanctuary,
2003) which features the
Please Call Home, Betts skilful, soulful master of fret young Derek Trucks.
You Say: “Duane Allman’s first solo on Whipping Post stands Meanwhile, For a documen
stepped up to the plate with and song. His Blue Sky is yet
as the greatest ever rock guitar solo in my mind, it always tary, there is Song Of The
two of his magnum opuses: In another rock classic and the
made me feel like riding through the desert – at full speed.” South: Duane Allman &
Memory Of Elizabeth Reed album closer, a rare Duane
Andi Gisler, MOJO Facebook The Rise Of The Allman
and Revival. The former instru- original called Little Martha,
mental is blessed with an Brothers Band (Sexy
is a poignant instrumental Quintessential ABB. The band’s third album is their mightiest for
Intellectual, 2013). The finest
unforgettable melodic hook, duet featuring the two a few reasons: it captures them in their most exciting element:
Allman tome is the poignant
while the latter is a plea for guitarists on acoustics. live; it was their first commercially successful release (and Please Be With Me: A Song
brotherhood and universal Gregg’s Melissa is an aching remains a big-seller to this day); and it’s considered by many to For My Father by Duane’s
love that perfectly captures love ballad that his brother be rock’s greatest live album. The dramatic opener is Blind Willie daughter Galadrielle Allman.
the interracial band’s open- wisely encouraged him to McTell’s Statesboro Blues with Duane’s trademark searing razor- She was only two when her
minded social views, as well as perform, while his Ain’t sharp slide guitar, followed by Gregg’s equally full-tilt vocal: father died, but has grown
the spirit of the times these Wastin’ Time No More is a “Wake up mama/ Turn your lamp down low!” Extended improvs to become a terrific scribe
stone-cold hippy freaks reminder after the tragedy on Elizabeth Reed, Whipping Post and You Don’t Love Me who intimately captures
embodied (it should’ve been of Duane’s death that life is established maps for what would evolve (along with the his spirit.
a hit single, but wasn’t). short and art is long. Grateful Dead) into the jam band scene.

MOJO 111
 It’s all Greek: enjoying an
Epirotic moment; (inset,
below) Kitsos Harisiadis.

WHAT WE’VE
LEARNT
● Epirotic folk
music is not
popular with the
So begins King’s
Peeling the Ionian
natives. “Tell us
strange, hallucinatory why you are here,”
asks one villager.
musical odyssey, an “You have fallen in
attempt to discover how love with our
How a Grammy-winning producer Strangely enough, King is also oddly this droning, primeval music? Are you
likeable, his passions infectious, so when he sure? Most people
and 78 rpm obsessive lost himself discordant music chimes don’t like this
finds himself on a family trip to Istanbul in with the harsh landscape
in Europe’s oldest surviving folk 2009 to see Leonard Cohen (“I had never
music. Especially
and bleak history of Greeks.”
music. By Andrew Male. heard of this man and was immediately Epirus. Told that the type ● As documented

apprehensive about bringing him into my in Paul Duane’s

of songs he loves on those
Lament From Epirus life”) you feel for him, and when a day trip to old 78s are still played in
wonderful 2018
documentary While
the Asian side of the city drops him down into modern Epirus, this
★★★★ a street lined with gramophones and old 78 grumpy, stay-at-home
You Live, Shine,
about King’s
journey from
Christopher C. King shops, the sense of excitement is palpable. Virginian joins with Virginia to Epirus,
NORTON. £21.99 There, in a Gramofon Antik shop, King Oxford University Greek the author intends
discovers a curious pile of pre-Second World to move to Greece
scholar Jim Potts and

C
HRISTOPHER KING is a curmudg- “as soon as I
War shellac, labels written in “a text that made travels to Epirus, fucking can”.
eon. Christopher King is a snob. no linguistic sense”, containing hypnotic, immersing himself in the ● The main
Christopher King does not like yearning spiritual recordings “unlike food, drink, music and practitioners of
your music. In the opening pages of anything I had ever heard”. King culture, writing extensively Epirotic folk music
this weird, wonderful and are now itinerant
discovers that these recordings are on the hallucinatory Romani people.
occasionally infuriating music by a man called Kitsos Harisiadis, qualities of the local drink, “We are treated
travelogue, King sets out his recorded in the 1920s and a grape brandy called less than dogs,”
one tells King.
table. A remastering engineer 1930s in Epirus, a mountainous tsipouro. “They only want us
and producer, the Virginia-born area straddling northwestern Yet as King falls deeper for our music.”
King has been Grammy- Greece and southern Albania. in love with Epirus and its
garlanded numerous times for Needing to know more, he people, he also convinces himself that the
the work he’s done with his contacts sibling Athenian modern music of the region is relatively
Long Gone Sound production collectors, Elias and Vasilis unchanged from that of the 1930s. It’s an act
company, reissuing collections of Barounis. Then, of romantic denial that
pre-war rural American music when Vasilis dies in ultimately undoes the
(folk, blues, gospel and Cajun), many 2011, King receives “A strange, assiduous research that
assembled from his own vast collection of
78s. He loves these old, weird records, “these
their entire collection of
Epirotic recordings. Charged hallucinatory dominates much of the book
but also marks the wonderful
transient, sacred vessels of sound”. To King, with the responsibility of musical point in this peculiar and
classical music is cerebral and inaccessible, looking after the region’s enthralling book where the
odyssey.”
Andrea Frazzetta

modern music “vacuous tripe”, but the pre-war musical legacy, he decides to misanthrope music historian
78 rpm shellac disc, that’s “real culture”, an delve deeper into the history learns to escape the safety of
“authentic” record of “humanely organised of what he believes is the oldest the dusty past and lose himself
sound” that lets him make sense of the world. folk tradition in Europe. in the wild present.

112 MOJO
 F I LT E R B O O K S

camaraderie and “taking on right on track. “Mars by ’80,” his doomed wife Linda (“Most Long Shadows,
the world” spirit was more he assured himself, and that divorcees fight over the
important, although when mood of bright, silvered children; we shared custody High Hopes: The
Steve Marriott left, “It felt as optimism suffuses this of the Ramones”) are the Life And Times
though there had been a historical overview of best thing about the pungent
death in the family.” From the electronic music. Moving from if patchy volume that follows. Of Matt Johnson
East End, Jones’s dad was a
lorry driver, his mum an
Stockhausen, Varese and
Cage, through Miles Davis and
The wealth of slightly tedious
detail about who called who
★★★
engraver. Family members Delia Derbyshire, past Suicide, to make which deal happen
Neil Fraser
were friends of the Krays Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, cannot obscure the reader’s OMNIBUS PRESS. £20
and Jones himself dabbled in to Eno, Aphex Twin and Burial, sense that this a great New Revealing portrait of a
criminal activity. But music Stubbs avoids completism but York showbiz biopic waiting singular trajectory through
saved him. Seeing The Who occasionally gets stymied by to happen. the music business.
in ’64 was pivotal; when he historicising and list-making. Ben Thompson Crippled with undigested grief
replaced Keith Moon in This is a shame, as Stubbs is a from the death of his younger
the group later on, Pete joy to read when emotionally brother Eugene and at
Townshend told him, invested in the music he’s
“You’re one of us.” Elsewhere writing about – witness the There’s No Bones loggerheads with an industry
in flux, Matt Johnson entered
Fare Thee there are stories of hotel short section on J Dilla’s In Ice Cream the new millennium in near
trashing, cocaine binges and sample-mad 2006 masterpiece
Well: The Final heavy drinking with The Faces, Donuts – or drawing on his ★★★★ penury and creative limbo.
The unlikely serial prankster’s
Chapter Of also of his love of polo. own insightful interviews with Sylvain Sylvain with path from shy backroom boffin
The Grateful
Although music still “plays sonic innovators like Cabaret Dave Thompson to world-straddling Zeitgeist
the biggest role in my life,” Voltaire or Aphex Twin. OMNIBUS PRESS. £16.99 chronicler is carefully evoked,
Dead’s Long, he concludes. Andrew Male
Rhythm guitarist and along with the crazed diets,
Lois Wilson
Strange Trip songwriter’s affec ate, bookish ruminations, detail
freakery and perpetual soul
★★★ Siren Song: My
sometimes lurid
his band.
it of
searching that has given his
Joel Selvin with Life In Music “It wasn’t ‘make
best work (Soul Mining; Dusk)
Pamela Turley such biting lyrical heft. Fraser,
love, not war’, it was
DA CAPO. £20.99 ★★★ ‘fuck everything
as his previous East London
history proved, is a meticulous
The afterlife explained – The Seymour Stein with and get laid’”, writes researcher who gains generous
Other Ones, The Dead, Gareth Murphy Sylvain of the New testimony from virtually all key
Furthur, RatDog and all. ST MARTIN’S PRESS. £22.99 York Dolls’ song players (Johnson in particular),
Vietnamese Baby, before with the notable exception of
This latest valuable addition to Inside track record-biz adding, “which was the story of
Dead scholarship begins anecdotage from an early enabler Stevo. While his
the Dolls.” And there are stories kitchen sink approach – as
where most of its predecessors who brought the galore here: about a scene in
end – with what happens after Talking Heads an onna. long-winded as Johnson’s
Johnny Thunders’ bathroom notoriously protracted methods
Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. As with Debbie Harry; of having
The authorial voice – should delight obsessives,
his ashes are blown back onto sex in the phone boxes and loft
of Seymour Stein’s too often the central narrative
the boat from which they’re at Max’s; of a terrified David
memoir takes a little is lost in the detail.
being scattered, and Bob Weir Bowie drinking in a dive bar in
while to cohere, Andy Cowan
has to hose them into the San
Francisco Bay, it’s a harbinger Mars By 1980 with the
ghostwriter’s
the Bowery. Yet there are
genuinely tender moments
of farces to come; fights over
spaghetti, “tempo wars” and
★★★ presence initially too far and poignancy too, especially
the Core Four – Weir, Phil Lesh, David Stubbs forward in the mix, but Siren where the aforesaid Thunders
FABER & FABER. £20 Song bursts into vivid and is concerned: Sylvain’s
Billy Kreutzmann and Mickey autobiography is full of insight
compelling life around the
Hart – squabbling their way Selective, celebratory about his insecure, lonely pal
time the teenage Seymour
through numerous post- history of electronic music, whom he taught to play guitar,
Steinbigle – as he was known
Garcia iterations. It’s a from the telharmonium to and ate hot bread and
until fast-talking King Records
compelling yarn for those Grime4Corbyn. Philadelphia cheese with when
boss Syd Nathan persuaded
invested in the band, and they got the munchies. “For
Sitting in his bedroom in 1977, him to prune his surname
Selvin and Turley do a fine job a while he had that junkie cool
besotted by the rhythmic – experiences homosexual
of clarifying the ever-changing thing going,” Sylvain reflects.
velocity of Donna Summer’s satori watching Ricky Nelson
band lineups and backstage “But starting that moment…
I Feel Love in 1977, and flicking perform Fats Domino’s I’m
machinations. Lesh (“Dark things began to change. They
through a five-year diary, the Walkin’. Stein’s acidic yet often
knight of the kingdom”!) and began to get dark.”
15-year-old David Stubbs felt tender pen portraits of
his wife/manager Jill are Lois Wilson
certain that the future was mentors, rivals and especially
painted as villains of the piece,
but the authors acknowledge
their role in working out how
the Dead’s music could endure
through myriad combinations
of improvisers – and, critically,
how to keep the still-growing
legions of Deadheads happy.
John Mulvey

Let The Good

Times Roll
★★★
Kenney Jones
BLINK PUBLISHING. £20
Small Faces, Face The
Who drummer’s li his
own words.
“Four young blokes
footloose and
carefree, mates
who were always
watching each
other’s back,” writes
Kenny Jones of the Small
Faces, whose story takes up
over half of this immensely
readable autobiography. For
Getty

Jones, the glass is half full; yes,

they were ripped off, but their Sonic innovators
Kraftwerk, ready
to head for Mars.
 I LT E R SC R E E N

Unbroken spirits: New

Orleans’ Dance Queen
Jennifer Jones with
the Dirty Dozen Brass
Band; (insets, from top) WHAT WE’VE
Dr. John, Irma Thomas, LEARNT
Kermit Ruffins. ● 90 per cent of
patients at the
Musicians’ Clinic
& Assistance
alive, as they themselves Foundation earn

Hurricane rescue vibes: a tremendous dude called David

battled age and infirmity.
Their gradual passing
prompts a fabulous
less than $15,000
a year.
● The Foundation’s
key benefactor is
How New Orleans’ musical sequence in the film – per- not from Louisiana,
Fountain describes how, after an unhappy haps the best summation or even America,
community bounced back from sojourn in Texas, he soon beat a path back but a Rotary club in
Katrina. By Andrew Perry. you’ll see of the second- an unspecified
home. “Isn’t nuttin’ like N’Orleans,” he line parade tradition, and small town in
tearfully declares, “we love music!” concomitant attitudes to Germany.
One Note At A Time Hundreds returned, like Fountain, to get death. As one exuberantly ● To donate, go to:
neworleansmusi-
★★★★ back to work in reopened bars and clubs, thus jiving lady explains, “The ciansclinic.org/
pioneering the city’s regeneration. Falling second line’s this weekly support-us/
Director: Renee Edwards back into their hand-to-mouth survival of event where we free-ee-ee donate/
MUNRO FILMS. IN CINEMAS AUGUST 24
weekly gigging, but having lost everything they the spirit!”
owned, often including instruments, they

T
HE IMPACT of Hurricane Katrina on Still, there’s a mood of elegy for the
New Orleans has been well document- were stuck in what came to be known as the departing generation, and a sense of the
ed, most exhaustively – and movingly ‘sacrifice zone’, unable to claim state health dangers that still prevail in this most hairy of
– in Spike Lee’s four-hour mini-series, When support from either Medicaid or Obamacare. cities: Terrell ‘Burger’ Batiste, trumpeter with
The Levees Broke. Here, though, is another Much of One Note At A Time follows their the ace Hot 8 Brass Band, tells of how he lost
slice of human tragedy, which packs an equally survival (or not) through the lens of charitable both legs in a hit-and-run accident, couldn’t
heavy emotional punch, about the trials of the organisation the New Orleans Musicians’ work for two years, but was duly faced with
city’s musicians in Katrina’s aftermath. Clinic & Assistance Foundation, whose $180,000 surgery bills.
In its opening minutes, Renee Edwards’ guiding lights Bethany and Johann Bultman After 95 minutes of stirring testimony, the
multi-award-winning documentary homes in faced a daily struggle to spread a puny Federal Bultmans’ endeavour in helping such afflicted
on the hurricane’s heart-wrenching immedi- grant across all those in need. heroes itself shapes up as
ate repercussions: composer Nathaniel As the organisation’s beyond heroic, and viewers
Franklin describes having to evacuate his advocate and adviser, Dr. John, “If musicians will rightly punch the air as
submerged apartment, essentially trading his notes, “If musicians ain’t got signs emerge of a rejuvenated
life for a terabyte’s worth of self-recorded a chance to live, then what ain’t got a scene, with young players
music stuck inside on his hard drive – half a chance has the music got?” chance to joining old to uphold the
lifetime’s work, gone at a stroke. Their work often focused on tradition. The film’s triumph,
In the days thereafter, many players fled to veterans of NOLA’s jazz and live, then though, is to capture the
nearby towns and cities, but struggled to exist, R&B foundation years, whose what chance magic, the colour and the
both financially and spiritually, outside of the continued participation was groove that made their
Big Easy’s singular climate of perma-fonking key to keeping these traditions has the mission so vital to begin with.
music got?”
DR. JOHN
114 MOJO
 LIVE MUSIC WEEKENDS PRESENTS

E N D
E E K E R
NOV 30TH'
W 16-17-18 Nov 2018 Butlin’s Minehead Arena
ȑ'(&1 
%87/,1Ũ6 FRIDAY 16
0,1(+($'
HEAD’S UP! 1ST LINE UP ANNOUNCED SHED SEVEN

MUNGO
MADNESS
JERRY Ȕ '$9,'
52',*$1 Ȕ &+5,6 ',))25'
SPECIAL GUEST TBA // MY LIFE STORY // SALAD // BENTLEY RHYTHM ACE
THE PRIMITIVES // THE DARLING BUDS // BACK TO THE PLANET // COLLAPSED LUNG

SATURDAY 17
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE
+25$&( $1'< :,7+ '8% $6$17( )($7 0$7,& +2516 THE BEAT t. RANKING ROGER // THE RIFLES // CHAMELEONS VOX
TWISTED WHEEL // BIS // BRIX & THE EXTRICATED // KINGMAKER (FOR A DAY)
*(12 :$6+,1*721 Ȕ &+5,6723+(5 (//,6 CANDY OPERA // EASY // STEVE LAMACQ (BBC RADIO 6)
2+ 0< *2' ,7Ũ6 7+( &+85&+ )8// /,9( %$1' SUNDAY 18
'(11,6 %29(// )($7 &$552// 7+203621 ORBITAL // PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT // STEREO MC’S // SYSTEM 7 // SENSER
& JANET KAY Ȕ BEZ '- 6(7 ROWETTA /,9( CLOSING PARTY FT: MILES HUNT (OF THE WONDER STUFF)
'-Ũ6 +8(< 025*$1 Ȕ 7+( +($7:$9( PLUS
$'5,$1 6+(5:22' 50+ LIVE PERFORMANCES FILM SCREENINGS // EXHIBITIONS
POOL PARTIES // DJ SETS // CLUB NIGHTS // PLUS MUCH MORE
3/86 0$1< 025(

3 nights from only £199pp 3 nights from only £175pp

See bigweekends.com for full break line-up See bigweekends.com for full break line-up

The Way Of Music presents

SKEGNESS
FRI 5 OCTOBER
MON 8 OCTOBER
2018 RESORT

A Boutique Indoor Music Festival

11-13 January 2019, Butlin’s Bognor Regis
Gary Numan
Echo & The Bunnymen
Maxïmo Park
Barry Adamson / Goat Girl
Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble
Luke Haines / Terry Hall DJ / Steve Lamacq DJ
Algiers / Chupa Cabra / Desert Mountain Tribe
Jemma Freeman and The Cosmic Something / John J Presley
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete / Madonnatron / Spare Snare / Squid
PURSEY, PARSONS, TREGUNNA, GUY
The Filthy Tongues / The Luka State / The Spook School
Winter Gardens / Yassassin / and many more PLUS MANY MORE

3 nights from only £79pp 3 nights from only £99pp

See bigweekends.com for full break line-up See bigweekends.com for full break line-up

Visit BIGWEEKENDS.COM and enter code MOJO or call 0330 102 5269
3 seaside locations | Legendary artists performing live | Over 18s only | 3 nights accommodation | Deposits from only £15pp

Prices shown are per person per break based on four sharing a Silver self-catering apartment and include all discounts and £s of, Prices and lineups are correct as of 29.06.18 but are subject to change. From £15
per person deposit is only valid when using the auto-pay feature and applies to new bookings only when booking more than 84 days before break start date. Deposits are non-refundable and your final payment
will be debited 12 weeks before you arrive. All ofers are subject to promotional availability, may be withdrawn at any time and cannot be combined with any other ofer or internet code except the 5% Premier Club
loyalty discount. For full terms and conditions please visit butlins.com/terms. Calls to 03 numbers are charged at standard UK rates and may vary from mobiles. These calls are included in any inclusive packages.
Butlins Skyline Limited, 1 Park Lane, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP2 4YL. Registered in England No. 04011665.
 F I LT E R L I V E S

Back to black
Robert Smith’s Meltdown closes with The Cure looking
backwards to move forwards. By Keith Cameron.
have noticed there’s a theme,” says
Curætion-25 SETLIST
Smith with a wry smile. Next up is
Three Imaginary Boys /
Southbank Centre, Bananafishbones from 1984’s The Top,
At Night / Other Voices /
A Strange Day / confirming that The Cure are indeed
London Bananafishbones / A
playing a song from each album, moving
Night Like This / Like
forward in time. As if anticipating the
Cockatoos / Pictures Of

T
HERE ARE hot tickets, and then You / High / Jupiter rejoinder that even with 12 albums to
there’s the grand finale of Robert Crash / 39 / Us Or Them /
choose from, this won’t fill out the
Smith’s Meltdown. MOJO arrives It’s Over / It Can Never
promised two hours, Smith returns to
Be The Same / Step Into
at the Royal Festival Hall box office to the mike. “The idea of this set is ‘from
The Light / The Hungry
discover that ours has actually been Ghost / alt.end / The Last
there to here – and back again’.”
stolen: with furtive three-figure Day Of Summer / Want /
From The Edge Of The So, having traversed the definitive
transactions underway outside, one tout Deep Green Sea / ’80s Cure-scapes into the flightier ’90s
felt it worth the risk to rush the Disintegration / If Only
and thence into the 21st century and the
collections desk and grab a handful of Tonight We Could Sleep /
Sinking / Shake Dog hulking stasis of the band’s last two
envelopes. After we’re issued with a Shake / One Hundred albums (gravy for Gabrels, at least, who
duplicate, sat waiting to see if anyone is Years / Primary / A finally gets to play a solo), we arrive at
Forest / Boys Don’t Cry
unlucky enough to buy the original and ‘here’: an unreleased song, It Can Never
attempt to claim the seat – they do; it’s Be The Same, which along with Smith’s
awkward – the thought occurs that all this drama observation, “Many more ‘heres’ next year, I
is in aid of an unknown quantity. hope”, suggests a new Cure album, the first since
The official billing for tonight is enigmatic 2008, will definitely come to pass. After a short
even by Smith standards: ‘CURÆTION-25’, interlude, we begin “the return journey” with
wherein “curator Robert Smith closes the 25th another new song, Step Into The Light, and then
Meltdown festival with an exclusive show… He is the album sequence in reverse. “Never thought I’d
joined on-stage by four of his curious friends – be on-stage playing a concept,” Smith admits.
and other imaginary accompanists – to perform “But I guess that’s what ‘curation’ is.”
special interpretations based on a very particular The chronological device has various
selection of songs he has sung [over] the years.” ramifications. It emphasises the sheer depth of
The inference that many here have made, on resources at Smith’s disposal: until the final three
absolutely no hard evidence whatsoever, is this songs, only Pictures Of You is a single, let alone
will be a Cure show, but with a difference: that a hit. Presumably the likes of Lullaby and
Smith will honour the comparatively intimate Inbetween Days will be rolled out at Hyde Park
setting and the fact that this year marks the 40th (indeed, the latter was essayed in touching
anniversary of his band’s formation by inviting homage earlier in the festival by the Manic Street
some of his erstwhile comrades from past Cure Preachers), but for the devoted gathered here the
line-ups to join him, perhaps even reuniting essence of The Cure will always be more Shake
co-founders Michael Dempsey, Pearl (formerly Dog Shake than Friday I’m In Love. Hearing such
Porl) Thompson and Lol Tolhurst. Failing that, a spread of material underscores how faithful
might he assemble a Cure revue from the battalion Smith has been to his core vision. It also affirms
of guests who have played Meltdown at Smith’s how immodestly the curator’s Meltdown hand has
behest during the previous 10 days…? been played, offering DNA traces of practically all
The reality is rather less giddy: Smith’s the acts he chose: there’s Mogwai in the epic
“curious friends” turn out to be Jason Cooper, minimalist doomscapes; My Bloody Valentine’s
Simon Gallup, Reeves Gabrels and Roger infernal psychedelic explosions amid the solarised
O’Donnell – AKA, the 2018 version of The Cure, mechanic horror of One Hundred Years; while
contractually obliged to adopt an alter ego by the the eternal conflict between negaholia and
fact of playing their “only European euphoric melody underpins Nine
show of 2018” at Hyde Park this Inch Nails, the Manics, Kristin
summer. Nonetheless, it’s a “Robert Hersh, and indeed pretty much
performance worthy of the one-off
occasion, right from the moment
Smith’s heroic everyone else.
Regarding the future of The
Smith says “Welcome to the one status as Cure as a functional creative entity,
and only performance of lighthouse- as opposed to an ever-lucrative
Curætion.” Out clang the opening catalogue-recycling tour vehicle,
bars of Three Imaginary Boys, the keeper for the wired Step Into The Light
title track of the band’s 1979 debut
album. It’s followed by the frigid
obsessive certainly speaks to a restored
dynamism and guile. Meltdown
trance At Night, from 1980’s romantics.” confirms Robert Smith’s heroic
Seventeen Seconds, then Other Voices status as lighthouse keeper for
Victor Frankowski

from 1981’s Faith raises Gallup’s obsessive romantics across the

bass blood count, then A Strange spectrum: his legend is a given. But Into the light:
Day from 1982’s Pornography… one more great Cure album would Curætionist
“The bright ones among you will do his legacy no harm. Robert Smith
shines on at
Meltdown 25.

116 MO
 F I LT E R L I V E S

Dance society
Former Talking Head keeps the message up-beat in London.
Danny Eccleston feels the Byrne.
the 66-year-old hops around
David Byrne SETLIST
constantly, singing with unexpected
Here / Lazy / I Zimbra /
Hammersmith Apollo, Slippery People / I
Should Watch TV / Dog’s
power and control and whooping
noisily between tunes like a fitness
London Mind / Everybody’s
Coming To My House /
instructor ‘feeling the burn’.
This Must Be The Place Everything percussive from

E
VERY NOW and again, you’re at Byrne’s back catalogue is lifted by the
(Naive Melody) / Once In
a show that you realise, then and A Lifetime / Doing The simple expedient of having six
there, will be spoken of as one of Right Thing / Toe Jam /
drummers jumping about, bashing
the greatest its attendees ever saw. Born Under Punches
(The Heat Goes On) / I like blazes, and presumably this has
That it will still be vivid in their dictated this tour’s selection of
Dance Like This / Bullet /
minds in five years, 10, and included Every Day Is A Miracle /
Talking Heads material. If Byrne did
in whatever list mechanic will rate Like Humans Do / Blind /
Burning Down The not have this audience in the palm of
landmark rock gigs in the discursive House / Encore: Dancinghis hand already, they are putty after
popular culture outlets of the future. Together / The Great a high-energy rendering of Fear Of
About six songs into David Byrne’s Curve / Encore 2: Hell Music’s I Zimbra, followed soon after
You Talmbout
‘American Utopia’ presentation, by Slippery People and Born Under
choreographed with imaginative but Punches (The Heat Goes On), a focus
uninvasive brilliance by Annie-B Parson, you – in other words – on Talking Heads as
realise that this is one of those shows. forward-funk purveyors that brings out the best
Not that it starts so very auspiciously. The in a group whose bass player (Bobby Wooten) is
stage is a vast empty box and the grey-suited the standout operator. Best of all tonight is
former Talking Head sits alone at a school desk Remain In Light’s relentless The Great Curve
peering at a model human brain, as the strains – almost too fiery in this boiling venue in
of Here (a song from Byrne’s latest solo album Britain’s too-hot June, especially when Byrne is
– excellent by the standards of David Byrne handed his white Stratocaster through a gap in
solo albums but, you know…) strike up. It the curtain, stage left, and rips a staccato,
could hardly be more parodic of Solo David Byrne-ified version of Adrian Belew’s Frippish
Byrne – egg-headed, abstruse, not quite what solo. Afterwards, there’s a dark patch on the
you were hoping for. A horror dawns: is this back of his grey suit; chunky backing singer
going to be, like, a play? Chris Giarmo is sodden.
What follows is so much the opposite of “Sometimes we feel that the world is
static, or cerebral, as to be literally laugh-out- wrong,” goes a line in that song. Byrne knows
loud hilarious. Eleven musicians, barefoot and that that’s how many are feeling, but his
dressed in identical grey suits, enter the stage message is uptempo; there are reasons to be
through slits in the curtains side and back. cheerful. From the stage he reminds us to
Their instruments are strapped to them. No register to vote. He’s even brought a funny little
leads. Six drummers sport pieces of kit, sign-up booth to go in the theatre foyer – it’s in
marching-band style. Everyone is moving, stars-and-stripes livery but the idea’s universal:
interlacing, interacting, like the Life During things can be changed.
Wartime segment of Stop Making Sense, but His second and final encore is a Janelle
fancier and non-stop. There is ‘theatre’ in here Monáe song – Hell You Talmbout – with a
– the influence of Byrne’s work with flag- Black Lives Matter theme for Juneteenth. It
waving ‘color guards’ in 2015; a disco song from feels humble, like a lot of tonight: Byrne has
Here Lies Love, the 2010 Imelda Marcos musical worked extremely hard and he’s given a lot,
he wrote with Fatboy Slim – but though the even if eight Talking Heads songs (out of 21)
dance aspects are delightful at worst and will never be enough for some.
strangely haunting at best, it’s the Praising a performing artist
sheer intensity of the music- for something as basic as
making that impresses most. “Byrne’s back dynamism, or ebullience, seems
It’s an energy that breathes catalogue oddly facile – we’re meant to
life into the seven tracks from demand more than this. But it’s
American Utopia that Byrne risks is lifted by going to take a while, after
tonight. The jarring, robotic the simple tonight, to get used once more to
lurches of I Dance Like This gain musicians sat down at their
dramatic power; the quirky- expedient drums and pianos, or umbilically
topical reflections of Dog’s Mind
seem more profound;
of having six chained to mikes and amps.
“The world moves and it
Everybody’s Coming To My drummers swivels and bops!” says The
House sounds even more like a jumping Great Curve. “The world moves
Burak Cingi/Getty

song LCD Soundsystem stole off

Talking Heads and Byrne has about, bashing andAnd it bounces and hops!”
it’s thrilling to
stolen back. Meanwhile, with his like blazes.” experience live music that does
grey fringe making flippy-floppy, all that, too.

118 MO
He moves and swivels
and bops: David Byrne
at the Hammersmith
Apollo, June 19, 2018.
 in association with

special guests

Sat
29 Sept
2018
O2 Academy
Brixton
London

Sat
15 Sept 2018
O2 Academy
Glasgow

Sat
MARK MORRISS ACOUSTIC SET ANDREW MONTGOMERY AND HIS BAND
22 Sept 2018
(Manchester only) (Glasgow only)
O2 Ritz
CHRIS HELME SOLO SET
Manchester
ticketmaster.co.uk starshaped.club Star Shaped Club @clubstarshaped @starshapedclub

Star Shaped The Home of Britpop

 DMP in association with Neil O’Brien Entertainment presents

THE VERY BEST IN FOLK, ROOTS, WORLD, BLUES & COUNTRY MUSIC

The Blind Boys of Alabama

WED 24 OCT / ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL

November 2018 tour

Mokoomba
THU 25 OCT / ST MARY’S MUSIC HALL
Thu 01
Fri 02
Cheltenham
London
Town Hall
Union Chapel Breabach
Sat 03 Birmingham Town Hall THU 1 NOV / ST MARY’S MUSIC HALL
Wed 07
Thu 08
Exeter
Cambridge
Phoenix
Corn Exchange The London
Fri 09
Sat 10
Norwich
Oxford
Open
Playhouse African Gospel Choir
Thu 15 Salisbury City Hall Perform Paul Simon’s Graceland
Fri 16 Bath Forum THU 1 NOV / UNION CHAPEL
Sat 17 Basingstoke Anvil
Thu 22 Yeovil Octagon Fishermans Friends
FOR MORE INFO & TICKETS: FRI 2 NOV / UNION CHAPEL
DMPUK.COM / SEETICKETS.COM
heishermansriends.com
Tom Baxter
TUE 6 NOV / UNION CHAPEL

Robert Vincent
Dmp & Friends By Arrangement With Musik.Al Present

TUE 6 NOV / THE LEXINGTON

Lindisfarne
FRI 9 NOV / UNION CHAPEL

Telamure
FRI 9 NOV / ST JOHN’S MUSIC HALL
With Tour support from

Bruce Cockburn
SAT 10 NOV / ST PANCRAS CHURCH
Wed 10 Birmingham O2 Institute
ticketmaster.co.uk / DMPUK.com Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys
Thu 11 Glasgow SWG3 GalvAniZers
ticketmaster.co.uk / DMPUK.com
SUN 11 NOV / BUSH HALL
Fri 12 Newcastle Boilers hop
welovewhq.com/events
y
John Smith
Sat 13 Leeds O2 Academ lunatickets.co.uk
THU 15 NOV / ST PANCRAS CHURCH
h Uea - The Lcr
Sun 14 Norwic ueatickets.ticketabc.com / DMPUK.com

Wed 17 Bristo l O2 Academy

Finbar Furey
THU 15 NOV / UNION CHAPEL
ticketmaster.co.uk / DMPUK.com
Tramshed
Cardif.ukf/ Tramshedcard
Thu 18eventbrite.co
Fri 19 Manchester Academ
iff.com
y
Sound of the Sirens
manchesteracademy.net THU 15 NOV / THE SLAUGHTERED LAMB
Sun 21 Bournemouth O2 Academy
ticketmaster.co.uk / DMPUK.com

Wed 24 Nottin gham Rock City

Rock-city.co.uk / AltTickets.com / DMPUK.com
S E E T I C K E T S . C O M / L O N D O N R O OT S F E S T I VA L . C O M
Sat 27 Frome Cheesecheeseandgra & Grain in.com
 thelondonrootsfestival  Ldnrootsfest
A London Roots Festival & Kilimanjaro presentation
 Est. 1991
specialauctionservices.com

usic an n er ainmen
uc ion
e em er

eaturing origina onnie oo artwor ea es memora i ia

an art ne o assic an rogressive oc iny o ection
one o e inest ever to come to auction.

ease contact avi artin on

music s ecia auctionservices.com

reen am usiness ar e ur
 T N A M E S .
’ S B I G G E S C A S T.
L LY W O O D N I N G P O D
HO W A R D -W I N
R E ’ S A
EMPI F RIDAY
O D E E V E RY
NEW E P I S P O D C A S T
O NL E.COM/
IN
EM P I R E
T I M E M AC HIN E

Sweet soil music: (clockwise from

main) Green Day prepare to be
pelted; festival poster; crowd-
surfing; cooling down with the
Peace Patrol; Bob Dylan; Henry
Rollins’ back; Green Day get pasted.

AUGUST 1994
…Woodstock wallows in mud
“This isn’t love and peace,” In fact, trouble had been brewing from the Michael Jackson marrying Lisa Marie Presley.
AUGUST 14 screamed Green Day’s off. Organisers claimed to have sold around Crosby, Stills & Nash (with a guesting John
Billie Joe Armstrong as he ducked a flying 190,000 tickets for this 25th anniversary Sebastian), Nine Inch Nails (whose Happiness
mud-pie. “It’s fucking anarchy!” Simultane- marking of the original countercultural Is Slavery was a punishing highpoint),
ously, bassist Mike Dirnt lay flat on the mega-fest, but the site’s mainly wire fences Metallica and the Rollins Band headed a
mire-covered stage, still playing as though were easily breached and the crowd swelled stellar but dampened Saturday programme
his life depended upon it. to an estimated 350,000. Add rain that turned that had Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler recalling, “it
Such was Woodstock ’94, a great blast of a the three-day event into Mudstock, and it was poured like a cow pissing on a flat rock.” The
festival that took place at Winston Farm in little wonder the thousand-odd attendants Bad Boys From Boston were meant to be on at
Saugerties, NY. What started out as a regular of the Peace Patrol felt a little overwhelmed. midnight: instead, they tumbled on stage at
Green Day set had fallen foul of h h r teething problems. 1.15 and played ’til three.
sodden, sludge-soaked audie ver Orbital, Deee-Lite Looking back on his appearance earlier in
made belligerent by the elem t Friday’s gurntastic the day, Henry Rollins commented: “When the
and determined to take out th rea was Aphex Twin, wind blew towards the stage all you smelled
frustrations on whoever was n earning that he was was the sweat of over 300,000 people. It was
Green Day managed 20 minut n away the rights to his so much flesh, humans as far as you could see.
the barrage before filth-coate rendered said Time seemed to hang suspended while we
leapt from the crowd to wrest gning using a made-up played… we had a blast!”
on-stage with security guards led Aphex live set… Though Johnny Cash was invited to play,
such bouncer mistook Dirnt fo h still boasted some of his non-main stage slot meant he declined.
stage crasher and, attempting l guns money could Instead, on Sunday the main North stage saw
take him down, damaged the f Brazilian World Cup acts including The Allman Brothers Band,
plucky bassist’s front teeth. Cotton Eye Joe and Traffic, Spin Doctors, Porno For Pyros and
Country Joe McDonald (who dedicated his
set to “departed souls hovering over the site”
s so much including Janis Joplin and original Woodstock
mastermind Max Yasgur). They were joined
humans by another legend: “We waited 25 years to
hear this,” said stage announcer, radio jock
ar as you Alan ‘Brother Wease’ Levin. “Ladies and
gentlemen, Mr Bob Dylan!”
uld see…” Dylan, who had missed out on the original
Woodstock shindig, was lauded by the New
NRY ROLLINS York Times in fulsome terms. “Except for only
 ALSO ON! TOP TEN
US REGGAE
two recent songs, Dylan and his four-man ALBUMS
band played a set they could have per- AUGUST 20
formed at the original festival: one
masterpiece after another from the 1960s. It 1PATRA
QUEEN OF
THE PACK
wasn’t 25 years too late.” Indeed, a blistering EPIC

Highway 61 Revisited eventually ended up

on A&M’s Woodstock 94 album. And nobody 2 YAGA YAGA
TERROR
FABULOUS EASTWEST
threw mud.
Even so, considerable distress was to VOODOO 3BORN
KIDS FROM
FOREIGN
JAMAICANS
follow after Peter Gabriel closed the show LAUNCHED
The Rolling Stones (Mick EASTWEST
and the drenched and drowned attempted
to make their way back to civilisation. Some
1Voodoo
Jagger, above) start their
Lounge tour, their 4 BAD BOYS
INNER CIRCLE
of the buses reportedly refused to stop in first without Bill Wyman, in BIG BEAT
certain areas because desperate people Washington DC.
were jumping on the hoods of the vehicles Easily Led: Robert TRAGIC MANIC 5UB40PROMISES
& LIES
VIRGIN
to escape the site. One reporter claimed: It’s reported that Manic
“There are thousands of people waiting in
and Jimmy (right)
together again. 6guitarist
Street Preachers
Richey Edwards 6SOUNDTRACK
COOL
RUNNINGS:
the light rain for the shuttle. It’s like trying to has been booked into a
catch the last flight out of Saigon.” VARIOUS COLUMBIA
Yet co-organiser Michael Lang observed: Page And private clinic to be treated for
“nervous exhaustion”.
7DANCEHALL
LETHAL
RIDDIMS ’94
“‘94 was wonderful, it had its own problems,
its own sort of mechanics… but everybody Plant Reunite SAX FOR THE
MEMORIES
Clarence Ford, the sax
EXPLOSION
VARIOUS RELATIVITY
had a great time.” And Green Day, who’d
AUGUST 25 Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy 9 player heard on many of
skipped the Lollapalooza tour to play the
date, certainly benefited. Their LP, Dookie,
Page and Robert Plant
and band convene at London’s LWT
Fats Domino’s hits, dies in
New Orleans at the age of 64.
8HAMMOND
IN CONTROL
BERES
ELEKTRA
which had taken four months to get to Studios to record a set for MTV’s Un- PIANO MEN
Number 19 in the US charts, took off in the plugged series. With extra sessions in 21 Elton John and Billy
Joel’s Face To Face
9MARLEY
SONGS OF
FREEDOM BOB
TUFF GONG
wake of their grimy triumph and reached Wales and Morocco, the resulting co-headlining 21-date tour,
Number 4, ensuring they’d headline for
years to come. The only person who felt
production will be dubbed UnLedded, and
feature Arabic and European orchestras,
where the two duet and play
each other’s songs, ends at
10 VOICE OF
AMAICA
J
BU U BANTON
J
embarrassed was Billie Joe Armstrong’s hurdy-gurdy and didgeridoo, as the duo Orlando’s Circus Bowl where MERCURY
they attract a 58,000 crowd.
mum Ollie, who complained about her son’s daringly reinterpret Zeppelin material
on-stage behaviour, his use of obscenities including Kashmir, When The Levee COOL BERKS
The Reading Festival
and the moment he pulled down his pants.
“Your father would have been ashamed of
Breaks and Nobody’s Fault But Mine.
Broadcast in October, it is released as No
26 opens, with Collapsed
Lung, Pavement and
you,” she wrote in a letter. The thoughts of Quarter in November. Zeppelin bassist Cypress Hill among main-
viewers at home – the whole thing was on stage stars. Courtney Love
John Paul Jones isn’t invited, and later is present and in full effect
cable pay-per-view for $50 – were unknown. muses, “I never really understood why throughout.
Fred Dellar they did what they did.” KEEPING FABS
In Los Angeles, the 30th
27 anniversary of The
Beatles’ Hollywood Bowl
show is celebrated by a huge
fan fair at the venue, Regally binding:
sponsored by Pepperland, Patra rules at
the rare records and Number 1!
collectables shop.

AD ARCHIVE 1994
Getty (4), PA (2), Shutterstock, Camera Press, Avalon, Advertising Archive

Black eye for the

Strat guy: Noel
Gallagher, bloodied
but unbowed.

evening, both Gallagher brothers jump into

OASIS KICK OFF the crowd to seek out the attacker, forcing the
On the first date of Oasis’s gig to be cancelled. Further mayhem occurs
AUGUST 9 UK tour at Newcastle’s when members of the audience vent their
Riverside, an assailant leaps from the frustration on the band’s van, smashing its Sweet, gassy and 5%, the alco-pop craze of the
audience and hits Noel Gallagher in the face windows. On August 29, their debut album, mid’90s begins in earnest. Go on, down six of
them and try and fight the bin lorry.
as he’s playing Bring It On Down. Later in the Definitely Maybe, is released.

MOJO 125
ASK FRED

It’s raining Len: (above, from left) Hallelujah

Is Hallelujah interpreters Alexandra Burke and Jeff Buckley

and its writer, Leonard Cohen; (inset) Blood,
Sweat & Tears’ second album from 1968;
ow) Phil Ochs, at peace in Scotland.

the most chart- Todd Haynes, who tasked award-winning Quills

screenwriter Doug Wright to re-do the script, while

hogging song ever? Reese Witherspoon announced at the 2012 Toronto

Film Festival that she was still involved with the
picture. Since then, though, the line has gone dead.
Has it disappeared into the mythical mausoleum
Bonnie Scotland and, before his death on April 9, that houses such projects? It would be in good
Who has answers to your cover 1976, asked his long-time friend Andy Wickham company: we in this parish still get a strange look
version, jazz-rock and movie music to ensure he’d be laid to rest there. Wickham and in our eyes thinking of such unmade films as the
queries? Fred Dellar, that’s who! Ochs’s brother Michael duly obtained permission Finian’s Rainbow rehash that got as far as an Ella
from the Garrison Commander of Edinburgh Castle Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Frank Sinatra
In December 2008, Alexandra Burke’s version of to scatter Phil’s ashes from the ramparts. So, as soundtrack, John Boorman’s Beatles-starring Lord
Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah went to Number 1 in reported in the NME: “On a sunny morning in July, Of The Rings, and Nicholas Ray’s Only Lovers Left
the UK charts, while Jeff Buckley’s cover was just a sergeant unlocked the Gate Of Mary, in Mary Alive, which would have featured the Stones. Not
below at Number 2. In addition, Leonard Cohen’s Queen of Scots’ Garden, and the ashes were to mention Martin Scorsese’s Gershwin flick or his
original was at 36, making three versions of the scattered from the Queen’s Post, thus ensuring for take on The Gangs Of New York that would have
same song in the Top 40. Has there ever been a Phil in his lasting resting place, a tranquillity that included input from The Clash. If any readers feel
chart with more that three versions of one song? had been unhappily absent during his life-time.” like sounding off about other proposed music film
Tom Godbolt, via e-mail projects that failed to make into their local Roxy, I’d
Fred Says: Charts featuring multiple versions of the DID LAURA NYRO love to read ’em while I chomp some popcorn.
same hit were fairly commonplace during the ’50s. BECOME A JAZZ ROCKER?
In the week ending May 21, 1955, four covers of Was Laura Nyro once the singer with Blood, WHO IS ZE?
Stranger In Paradise were located in what was then Sweat & Tears? Can you provide any information on Brazilian
a mere Top 20. Tony Bennett’s version reigned Pamela Ferguson, via e-mail performer Ze Maria? I’ve tried everywhere online,
supreme at Number 1, Tony Martin’s take Fred Says: No – though she nearly Wiki, YouTube etc, and the only info provided
occupied the seventh spot, vocal took the job. Laura was the girlfriend there is in (presumably) Portuguese.
group The Four Aces’ rendition Donald Vine, via e-mail
of BS&T bassist Jim Fielder and
claimed sixteenth position and
actually rehearsed with the band, Fred Says: Ze Maria was an organ-playing
trumpeter Eddie Calvert provided
who wanted to sign her as the bandleader whose main (and only?) claim to fame
an instrumental at 17. That chart
also featured three versions of band’s regular vocalist, but is that he cut an album for the Continental label
Unchained Melody by, Nyro’s management advised her titled Tudo Azul – Bossa Nova E Balanço in 1963 that
respectively, Al Hibbler (5), Les to remain a solo act, and so the featured two vocal tracks by Jorge Ben Jor, one of
Baxter (11) and Jimmy Young (13), venture fell through. However, which was Por Causa De Você, Menina, the other
plus two takes on Cherry Pink And the band did record Nyro’s And being Mas Que Nada, a song covered by countless
Apple Blossom White, by Eddie When I Die, which in 1969 became performers including Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam
Calvert (2) and Perez ‘Prez’ Prado (3). BS&T’s third consecutive single to Makeba and noted Moog-worriers Perrey &
But they didn’t complain about a song’s reach Number 2 in the Billboard charts, Kingsley, not to mention Sergio Mendes, who had
over-exposure in those days – they just got the first time in history that one LP – the a hit with it in 2006, assisted by The Black Eyed Peas.
on with it. Stranger In Paradise, by the way, though band’s second – spawned three gold singles. The Ze Maria release, incidentally, predates Jorge
stemming from the Broadway musical Kismet, was Ben Jor’s debut recording for Philips.
based on a melody from Borodin’s Polovtsian WHAT HAPPENED
Dances, part of the opera Prince Igor. TO PEG’S BIOPIC? CONTACTFRED
Whatever happened to that Peggy Lee biopic in
WHAT HAPPENED which Reese Witherspoon was set to star? To get questions answered or help clarify a puzzle, write to:
TO PHIL OCHS’S ASHES? Rose Harrison, via e-mail Ask Fred, MOJO, Fourth Floor, Academic House,
Is it true that Phil Ochs had his ashes scattered Fred says: The Peggy Lee Story was originally a 24-28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DT.
in Scotland? project of the late Nora Ephron, who first mooted OR e-mail Fred Dellar direct at
Getty (4)

H. Harvey, via e-mail the title in 2010. When Ephron died a couple of [email protected]
Fred Says: The truth and nothing but. Ochs loved years later, the baton was taken up by director

126 MOJO
 MOJO C OM PE T I T I O N

ANSWERS ACROSS
1 (No More) Love At Your Convenience,
MOJO 296 he declared in 1977 (5,6)
Across: 1 John Lydon, 6 The surname is Quatro (4)
6 Tomita, 9 Never A 8 Time for a Noah & The Whale album or a
Dull Moment, 12 Keys, U2 single (4,5,2,5)
13 Closing Time, 15 On 11 Label launched by Robert Stigwood (3)
And On, 18 Lemar, 19 12 This Elvis Presley movie was based on
Shboom, 20 Alan, 23 a Harold Robbins’ book (4,6)
Deities, 25 Utopia, 26
Apollo, 27 Tuli, 30 14 Their B-sides include The Truck Driver
N.W.A, 31 Enid, 32 And His Mate and Get It Online (3,4,4)
Arena, 34 Fast, 35 17 He was coming for Laura Nyro and
Singles, 37 Moog, 39 Three Dog Night (3)
Tito, 41 Anohni, 44 18 See photoclue A (6,4)
March, 46 New Kids, 47 19 Jess Glynne’s Rather Be companions (5,6)
Kray, 48 Eagles, 49
Blonde, 51 Mother, 54
22 Tanya Donelly’s last album with
Dog Man Star, 55 Muse, Throwing Muses (3,4,6)
56 UK Subs, 57 Anna, 24 Röyksopp’s debut album (6,2)
58 Small Faces, 62 26 As originally wanted by Barrett Strong (5)
Ricky, 64 Guitar, 65 28 Its cover put Bunnymen in a boat (5,4)

Brilliant corners
Hallyday, 66 Nancy, 67 31 Brooklyn-born jazz/R&B guitarist (4,4)
No Secrets.
34 Sporting Gene album? (8)
Down: 1 Janis Joplin, 2 35 Reissue record label, thick-skinned (5)
Havana Moon, 3 38 A Stone Poneys album – or a Barbra
Loretta, 4 Dad, 5 Nile, 6
Streisand release (6,3)
Win! Triangular C5 speakers of optimum lushness. Tams, 7 Mumford And
Sons, 8 Tanya, 10 Uke, 39 This was the first Tangerine Dream
11 Lyle Lovett, 13 album to feature lyrics and vocals (7)

A
TWO-WAY speaker with extended bass performance – due to its advanced passive Cassadaga, 14 MCA, 16 41 Amusing behaviour from Interpol? (6)
woofer – the Cornered Audio C5 range offers impressively strong sound pressure Nat, 17 Over The Edge, 43 With which Pete Townshend stated
and high sensitivity. The tweeter reproduces crisp high frequencies beyond 25 kHz, 21 Lau, 22 Nuisance, 24 the obvious (2,1,3)
and the speaker cable is run in a slot at the rear, reducing those pesky wires everywhere. I.R.S., 27 Tago Mago, 29
Meg, 33 Emo, 36 New
44 Billy Joel’s song for Christie Brinkley? (6,4)
Available in black or white, they also boast a startling 90° triangular design that makes for York Dolls, 37/28 Mike 45 The Beatles’ polythene female (3)
super-neat installation anywhere – in corners, on the wall, below the ceiling, on shelves and Nesmith, 38 Gay, 40 I’ll 47 - --- --- Shoes (Albion Dance Band
as a centre and rear channel for surround sound. Stick, 42 Nelson, 43 album) (1,3,3)
We have a pair worth £750 to give away! So get those synapses Hank Marvin, 45 Haan, 49 Survivor’s tiger-owned optic (3)
50 A Million, 52 Hound 50 “Why Am I Standing On A Cloud?” etc.
fired up and give Bashful Fred’s crossword the old one-two. Then Dog, 53 Rosalyn, 54 (Madonna) (5)
end it to Brilliant Corners, MOJO, Academic House, 24-28 Oval Desk, 59 My Guy, 60
Foals, 61 Ska, 63 Coin, 52 A singer hides amid Mose Allison (4)
Road, London NW1 7DT. Please include your home address, e-mail 54 You ---- Me (Sam Cooke) (4)
address and phone number, and say if you would prefer black or 65 Her.
55 How Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
white speakers. The closing date for entries is September 2. For Winners: Andy
came to a halt (4)
Collier of Claypole,
he rules of the quiz, see www.mojo4music.com. Duncan Fletcher of 56 Magazine’s type of life in 1978 (4)
See www.karma-av.co.uk for more info. Oxshott, Thomas 57 The Residents’ Inuit release (6)
Patterson of Chiswick 58 - --- You Baby (Groove Armada) (1,3)
win a John Lennon 59 Roni from Reprazent (4)
Imagine figure by 60 Badfinger’s 1973 LP (3)
Molecule 8.
61 Dave, once of Traffic (5)
DOWN
1 2 3 4 5 6 6 7
A B 1 See photoclue B (4,7)
2 This rock’n’jazz film was Richard
Lester’s first movie (3,4,3)
3 He’s composed over 500 film scores (5,9)
8 9 10 4 Protest singer Phil found at The
Molochs’ end (4)
11 5 See photoclue C (8)
6 Was this album a switch for Beck? (3,6)
12 13 18 14 15 16
7 They boast the best beards in rock (1,1,3)
9 Coloured like Scritti Politti’s frontman (5)
10 Great British Folk label (5)
17
13 Stevie Wonder’s 1976 hit later sampled
by Will Smith (1,4)
18 19 20 15 Morrissey’s dapper comp (4,4)
16/21 James’ invitation to get comfy (3,4)
19 20 21 21 20 Wait insanely for conversion to a Miles
Davis release (2,1,6,3)
22 23 24 25 21 See 16
22 Talking Heads’ offshoot (3,3,4)
27 30 23 Once more a hit for Janet Jackson (5)
24 Sweet Child O’ ---- (Guns N’Roses) (4)
25 Lieberman who first performed Killing
26 27 28 29 33
Me Softly With His Smile (4)
27 Boy band that once included Justin
34 30 31 32 33
Timberlake (5)
29 Def Leppard’s 1992 album (10)
34 35 36 37 38 39 30 Irish folk duo formed by Leo O’Kelly
and Sonny Condell (3,2,3)
40 38 32 Bodysnatcher Dakar (5)
33 This Rita Coolidge album title paid
39 40 41 43 tribute to her heritage (8)
36 Morbid Gary Numan? (1,3,3,3)
45 42 41 43
37 Scottish folk band whose albums
included St Kilda Wedding (6)
40 His 1976 LP was Endless Flight (3,5)
44 45 46
42 Judee, signed to Asylum label (4)
45 Boys For --- (Tori Amos album) (4)
47 48 51 52 49 46 ------ Atmos (Van Der Graaf Generator
live album) (6)
50 51 52 53 48 Bluesman Sleepy John (5)
51 Record label launched by US Columbia
54 55 56 in 1953 (4)
52 Carly Simon’s secret agent album (3)
53 ---- Code 615 (Nashville country-
Alamy (2), Rex

57 58
rockers) (4)
54 Abba’s call for help (1.1.1.)
59 60 61
55 Bobby Darin went beyond it (3)
C

MOJO 127
 COMING UP
*ALL SHOWS AT VENUE UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED

LONDON ASTROBEAT ORCHESTRA AARON WATSON OVER 250,000 ITEMS FROM

PLAYS TALKING HEADS + FOREIGN AFFAIRS YOUR FAVORITE BANDS
‘STOP MAKING SENSE’ THURSDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER
FRIDAY 27TH JULY SCREAMING FEMALES
FREE VIBES X AMAZING RADIO: FRIDAY 7TH SEPTEMBER
THE GOA EXPRESS & MORE IMARHAN
THURSDAY 2ND AUGUST SATURDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER
FREE VIBES X AMAZING RADIO: ICEAGE
CHINA LANE & MORE SUNDAY 9TH SEPTEMBER
THURSDAY 9TH AUGUST (AT GORILLA, MANCHESTER)
FREE VIBES X AMAZING RADIO: MAN
JEKYLL & MORE FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER For a free catalog, visit rockabilia.com, call 001-952-556-1121 or write:
PO Box 39 Dept 129 - Chanhassen, MN 55317 - USA
THURSDAY 23RD AUGUST GOOD FOXY
DZ DEATHRAYS FRIDAY 21ST SEPTEMBER
FRIDAY 24TH AUGUST DESERT MOUNTAIN TRIBE TO ADVERTISE IN
FREE VIBES X AMAZING RADIO: SATURDAY 22ND SEPTEMBER
HEAVY ON THE MAGIC & MORE (AT EAGLE INN, SALFORD)
THURSDAY 30TH AUGUST LANKUM
MANCHESTER PSYCH FEST 2018 SUNDAY 23RD SEPTEMBER
SATURDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER (AT ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE,
MANCHESTER)
THE LONE BELLOW + AHI
SUNDAY 2ND SEPTEMBER TOM ROBINSON
(AT ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE, THURSDAY 10TH OCTOBER CLASSIFIED PLEASE CALL
MANCHESTER) PUPPET REBELLION
AMEN DUNES + CUT WORMS
WEDNESDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER
SATURDAY 13TH OCTOBER ROSS WILLETT
JANE WEAVER SOLO UK TOUR ON
(AT GORILLA, MANCHESTER) 17TH OCTOBER - 9TH NOVEMBER

BANDONTHEWALL.ORG 0161 832 1111 / 25 SWAN STREET

NORTHERN QUARTER, MANCHESTER, M4 5JZ
01733 363201

for sales/enquiries or FREE brochure call - 01423 500442

 ANYWHERE
co lle ct io ns of vin yl records and CDs
ity
in viewing ALL qual
We are interested ’ll tra vel to you.
th e UK an d Ireland. We ts or to
throug ho ut
lik e to ta lk w ith one of our specialis
ld
Machine if you wou
Contact The Sound
appointment.
arrange a viewing

ed Independent Record Shop

Establish
Reading’s Longest CDs yl records and
an d second-hand vin
g and selling new
Specialists in buyin
across all genres.
ading,
24 Harris Arcade, Re
hine.uk.com
info@thesoundmac Berkshire RG1 1DN
07786 078 361
0118 957 5075

k.co m
thesoundmachine.u
H E L L O G O O D BY E
Mid-’80s Chicago
(clockwise from front
left) Lee Loughnane, South Side of Chicago and they were from the
Peter Cetera, Chris
Pinnick, James Pankow, North Side. I always had a different mind-set
Walter Parazaider, than the other guys in the group, I think. It’s
Danny Seraphine, the way it was, y’know.
Robert Lamm.

GOODBYE SUMMER 1985

You have some ups and downs, and the ups
are pretty heady. But at a certain time,
probably with any group, it tends to be not so
much fun any more. There came a time when
the disagreements just started to outweigh
everything else. Basically, it came down to, I
wanted to do a solo album and management
and the group didn’t want to give me the
time. They wanted me to do yet another
Chicago album. So I said, “All right, but after
this one, right?” So I did [1984 LP] Chicago 17.
And then it was, “OK, you have to go on the
road now,” something ridiculous like 150
dates. So I went on the road and after that
I said, “Now can I do it?”
Basically, they sent a letter from the
solicitor saying, “We want you to sign this,
saying that you’ll go on the road for so many
dates.” I said, “What if I don’t?” The manager
said, “Well if you don’t, they’re gonna maybe
start looking for somebody else.” That just
pissed me off enough to say, “Tell them to
start looking.”
There was too much water under the
bridge at that point. Musically we didn’t agree
on anything. There was a lot of drugs and
drinking involved. Everything was a fight, and
ego, and money, and heavy jealousy. So they
sort of backed me into a corner and they gave
me a door to get out.
It was not a good ending, but I’m not sure
most groups have good endings. You never
hear, “Oh, we’re good friends to this day!” For
years there was so much bad blood I thought,
Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about it. After
the whole Rock and Roll Hall of Fame fiasco [in

Peter Cetera and 2016, Cetera declined to attend after he and

his old bandmates experienced musical
differences, again], I just said, “Fuck it, I don’t

Chicago things like Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Plus, they were still doing some old soul
tunes, which was fun.
I was looking for something else to do and
care any more.”
It was a dysfunctional group and that’s it.
And no we’re not friends and no there won’t
be a reunion and all that stuff. I love money
It was fated that they get together they were looking for a singing bass player. too, and that’s why people do that, but it
at Barnaby’s club in Chicago. But They said, “Hey, we wanna talk to you after never works because there are reasons why
after 18 years, the stifled need to the show.” So we went for breakfast some- you break up. Now, maybe I’m not having the
where at four o’clock in the morning. A couple success I had back then, but I’m having so
strike out alone spelled the end. of the guys came and said, “What do you much more fun with this lovely group of
think about joining our group?” I don’t people I have in my band now. And music’s
HELLO DECEMBER 1967 remember our first rehearsal. We probably meant to be fun.
I was in a group in Chicago, The Exceptions. rehearsed on the job. It was one of those As told to Ian Harrison
We had a gig, the grand opening of a new deals that was just written in the cards [sic]
club called Barnaby’s. The owner also hired y’know? I was at the end of the tether with the Peter and his band The Bad Daddies play London’s
Barbican on October 29.
this new band called The Big other group, and all of a sudden,
Thing. We played a week this opportunity came.
together, alternating sets. We played a couple of local
That’s how I got to know them. things in Chicago and Peoria, and
They were a little more Milwaukee, and within a few
progressive than the group months I was packing my little
I was with. I’d been with The Volkswagen and a trailer and I
Exceptions for about eight years, was driving to California [The Big
we were a Top 40 group and that Thing having been renamed
was kind of becoming passé. Chicago Transit Authority].
Doing new arrangements of the Going into a group that was
Avalon, Getty, Marc Metzer

stuff that was out there, or already set up, I would say I had
starting your own stuff, was “I said, a different relation to them than
coming into vogue. They had they had to each other. In
horns which let them do things I
Fuck it, I hindsight, in a big way. I was Early days, with founder
couldn’t do with the old group, don’t care considered as always the Terry Kath (back, second
left); (left) Peter today.
and they were doing covers of outsider. Plus, I was from the
anymore.”
PETER CETERA
130 MOJO
T H E G R E AT E S T B A N D . T H E F I N E S T
W R I T E R S . T H E F U L L S T O R Y.

ON SALE NOW!
Buy online with The Red Issue 1962-1966
at www.greatmagazines.co.uk/beatles
 “Another outstanding chapter” 8/10 Uncut
“New Yorkers’ eighth lets the light and beauty in” ++++ Mojo