Independent on Sunday

Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Dead But Unburied Dreams of the Sixties

Profile by Mark Cooper, Independent on Sunday, October 1990

After 18 years of making magic music, the Grateful Dead – who return to Britain this week – still remain true to their legendary spontaneity. ...

Nirvana: National Theatre, Kilburn

Live Review by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, November 1991

WHEN NIRVANA appeared at the Reading Festival earlier this summer, they were just one more obscure American underground rock trio with a good LP and ...

Nirvana at Reading

Live Review by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, August 1992

BY THE LAST day of the Reading Festival, the physical conditions have reverted to type. Soggy survivors cluster on little islands dotted between enormous mud ...

Jerry Wexler: Crossing The Divide

Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Independent on Sunday, May 1993

GET JERRY WEXLER started on the big bands of the Thirties and Forties and you'll never hear the back of it. Most ageing music moguls ...

Nirvana: In Utero

Review by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, September 1993

ROCK AND ROLL can be cruel. One minute you are a professional misfit, happily living out a punk-rock life of misery and alienation in an ...

Portishead

Report and Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, 1994

AUTUMN 1994. The fake foliage hanging from the ceiling gives the Eve Club off Regent Street the air of a woodland glade. The venue for ...

Iris DeMent

Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, 1994

THE VOICE of Iris DeMent is a remarkable instrument. There's a sob in it, a roll of the tongue, a fluting quality that speaks of ...

Nirvana: Kurt Cobain: Too Good For This World

Obituary by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, April 1994

AT MIDNIGHT on Friday, after the violence in Rwanda and before the end of the IRA ceasefire, a vaguely disdainful Radio 5 newsreader announces the ...

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci

Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, 1995

THE LEAP of faith required to enunciate the unappetising name of this mighty Pembrokeshire quintet – plain, pronounceable old Gorky's to their legion of devoted ...

Ozzy Osbourne: The Ozzmosis of Ozzy Osbourne

Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, 1995

IT IS THE Winter of 1980-1. Black Sabbath are playing at the Hammersmith Odeon, for the first time without Ozzy Osbourne – widely regarded as ...

Simply Red: Mick Hucknall

Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, December 1995

Given that Lemmy of Motorhead's father was a priest, it makes a crazy kind of sense that Mick Hucknall's dad should have been a barber ...

George Clinton

Interview by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, July 1996

GEORGE CLINTON has learnt some things in five decades of music-making, and one of them is how to make an entrance. As the Clinton party ...

John Cale, Patti Smith: John Cale and Patti Smith: How We Met

Interview by Lucy O'Brien, Independent on Sunday, August 1996

JOHN CALE, 55, rock musician and composer, was born in South Wales, moved to New York in the early 1960s and became a founder member ...

Nirvana: From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah (Geffen)

Review by Ben Thompson, Independent on Sunday, October 1996

FOR ALL THOSE who will overturn the tables like Jesus in the temple if they hear Nirvana Unplugged in another vegetarian restaurant, From the Muddy ...

Oasis: live at Earls Court, London (27th September 1997)

Live Review by Will Self, Independent on Sunday, October 1997

IT WAS an emotional night for me – as it was for so many others. The minute that Liam Gallagher reached the centre of the ...

Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead: Haight-Ashbury

Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Independent on Sunday, December 1997

The times they have a-changed, but not without a certain irony. Or a certain continuity, come to that. ...

Marianne Faithfull: An Interview

Interview by Will Self, Independent on Sunday, 1999

THERE'S NOTHING much crasser in life than being told by someone, shortly after you've met them: "You really remind me of so-and-so..." It's bad enough ...

Rolling Stones, The: Mick Jagger: Sympathy for the Old Devil

Comment by Charles Shaar Murray, Independent on Sunday, July 2003

"YOU'RE A FUNNY little fella," the gangster played by James Fox tells the reclusive rock star played by Mick Jagger in Donald Cammell and Nicolas ...

Dr. Feelgood, Wilko Johnson: Wilko Johnson: Rhythm Doctor

Interview by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, January 2005

Flood and drugs and R&B – the life and works of Wilko Johnson have been fast and turbulent. But the Essex Assassin is still rocking ...

Babyshambles: Pete Doherty And The New Decadence

Comment by Charles Shaar Murray, Independent on Sunday, February 2005

PERHAPS MARC ALMOND put it best: "To me a star is someone who has something extra, and something missing at the same time – ...

Solomon Burke

Interview by Gavin Martin, Independent on Sunday, February 2005

ON A RAINY FRIDAY afternoon Solomon Burke is holding court in the living room of his San Fernando Valley home. The man who has claimed ...

Kate Bush: Return of the Recluse

Profile and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Independent on Sunday, October 2005

PLENTY HAS HAPPENED in the twelve years since Kate Bush last released an album. Tory sleaze has morphed into New Labour; mobile phones and iPods ...

Keith Richards: How to be Keef: A User's Guide

Guide by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, July 2006

WHAT GOES through the mind of a rock colossus as he falls from a coconut tree? Depends on your rock colossus, of course. So let's ...

John Martyn: The Barbican, London

Live Review by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, September 2006

"Burble burble burble... President Bush... flffle mffle wffle... 'kin 'ell... urgle wurgle gurgle... I'm trouble too! Heheheheheh..." ...

Steve Hillage, Gong: Steve Hillage: Woggle Head

Profile and Interview by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, January 2007

Steve Hillage was a prime groover on the Canterbury psychedelic scene of the Seventies and still makes far-out trance music today. So why do people ...

Richard and Linda Thompson, Linda Thompson: Linda Thompson

Interview by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, September 2007

Linda and Richard Thompson's marriage was fiery – so much so that Nick Hornby began a script about the legendary folk rockers. Here, on the ...

Led Zeppelin: Why We Should Dig The 'Rock Dinosaurs' All Over Again

Guide by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, December 2007

They were the biggest band of the 1970s and they're about to reform ...

Rolling Stones, The: Exile on Main St: A Season In Hell With The Rolling Stones, By Robert Greenfield (Da Capo Press)

Book Review by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, February 2008

In the summer of 1971, Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg holed up in a villa on the Riviera with the other members of the Rolling ...

Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear: Deal Me Out

Retrospective by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, February 2008

At the age of 39, Marvin Gaye's marriage hit the rocks, and he was forced into the studio to pay the divorce fees. Reissued 30 ...

Booker T. Jones: Booker T Jones: The King Of Stax Picks Up His Axe

Interview by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, April 2009

With his band the MGs, Booker T was the resident genius at one of America's great soul labels. Now, with a bit of help from ...

Ian Dury: Hit Me With Your Rhythm Schtick: How Did Ian Dury Become One Of The Most Fascinating Rock Stars Of The 1970s?

Retrospective by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, January 2010

As a new film reminds us, he was a polio survivor from the suburbs and not much of a musician. ...

Who, The: Long Live Rock: The Who

Comment by Barney Hoskyns, Independent on Sunday, February 2010

ARGUABLY THE MOST famous line The Who's Pete Townshend ever wrote was "Hope I die before I get old" on 1965's angry young anthem 'My ...

Jimi Hendrix: 'I Was So Cocksure With Jimi': How Rock Photography Pioneer Gered Mankowitz Captured Hendrix And The Cream Of The 1960s

Profile and Interview by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, August 2010

Gered Mankowitz wasn't yet 21 when his pictures captured London's groovers at their hippest. As the portraitist prepares to put his Hendrix archive on show, ...

Sandy Denny: The Queen of Fairport

Retrospective by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, May 2012

LESS THAN A decade ago a retrospective CD box-set came out. A Boxful of Treasures documented the life and career of the English singer-songwriter Sandy ...