MOJO
Afghan Whigs: The Afghan Whigs
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1993
"The perfect cv: liquor, pugnacity, political incorrectness, Catholic guilt and incorrigible horndoggery..." ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The War Of The Berets
Interview by Rob Steen, MOJO, November 1993
England gives Rickie Lee Jones the creeps. We are unkind, unhappy, un-rhythmic, tight-arsed and extremely white. ...
Live Review by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, November 1993
AT THE BACK OF the hall stood a tall and bulky figure, taking light refreshment and delivering his expert verdict on the performance of the ...
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, November 1993
A RIOT OF SEQUINS and studded belts, of thick foundation and fringed pastel jackets, of monstrous boots and massive hair, Nashville's old – and new ...
Moby Grape: Vintage: The Very Best Of Moby Grape
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, November 1993
MOBY GRAPE BEGAN IN 1966, arguably the decade's peak; they fell apart in 1969, a time of madness, desolation, dread. Between the optimism of ‘Hey ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, November 1993
ACCORDING TO MOST rock histories the late '70s were defined by punk rock and the Sex Pistols. Commercially speaking, however, the awful truth is that ...
Factory, The: Lowell George & The Factory: Lightning Rod Man
Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, November 1993
I WAS FORTUNATE enough to meet Lowell George close on 20 years ago. He was a charming great bear-like man rumpled and a little worse ...
Captain Beefheart: 'Yeah, I'm Happy!'
Retrospective by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, December 1993
He is alive. A recluse. Painting in seclusion up near the Oregon border. There have been weird signals through the ether since he stopped making ...
Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart: Captain Beefheart: Dropout Boogie
Retrospective by Miles, MOJO, December 1993
IT WAS 2am, September 1969, and I was having a cup of styrofoam coffee with Don Van Vliet in the 24-hour automated snack-bar of TT&G ...
Live Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, December 1993
THIS SUMMER'S VELVET UNDERGROUND reunion inevitably recast John Cale in the role of Lou Reed's foil. After all, while the Velvets clearly depend on the ...
Interview by Rob Steen, MOJO, December 1993
WITHOUT WISHING to take anything away from the Fabulous Furry Finn Brothers, it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Squeeze. With a little ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1993
BH: Looking back, John, was the Little Village experience – you, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, Jim Keltner – as much of an anti-climax for you ...
10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant: Natalie Merchant: Little Sister Syndrome
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1993
MOJO: YOU'VE BEEN described as "interminably serious". Is that accurate? ...
Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, December 1993
HAS TIME STOOD STILL? Fifteen years on and Jackson Browne's running on empty again. He's out of love yet surviving, holding himself together but now ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1993
BETWEEN NICK CAVE AND THE FALL maybe; or separating early Dexys from mid-peri-od Pogues; or even right back alongside Lee Hazlewood and Leonard Cohen – ...
Harry Nilsson: Singer, Songwriter, Fab-Across-The-Water 1941-1994
Obituary by Derek Taylor, MOJO, 1994
John and Paul were asked to name their favourite artist. "Nilsson." And band? "Nilsson." ...
Albert Collins: Blue Guitarist, Singer, Iceman, 1932-1993
Obituary by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, January 1994
ALBERT COLLINS WAS ROUGH. THAT'S ROUGH AS IN 'NICE 'N' rough', as opposed to 'mean 'n' rough'. He demonstrated the difference to perfection a couple ...
Obituary by Dave Rimmer, MOJO, January 1994
[NOTE: This was part of Mojo’s obituary for Frank Zappa, and was published in January 1994. The brief was simply to look at his career ...
James Booker: The Unsung Piano Genius with Star-spangled False Teeth
Profile by Ben Thompson, MOJO, January 1994
"IF ALL AMERICAN PIANO PLAYERS LINED UP IN A ROW, each knowing the other’s abilities and talents, all would take a step back to recognise ...
Aphex Twin: The Mozart of Techno
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, January 1994
"Is this the sound of old languages breaking up? Or of new ones forming?" ...
Mazzy Star: Mean Fiddler, London
Live Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, January 1994
IN THE PRIVACY OF ONE'S OWN HOME, CALIFORNIA'S MAZZY Star can sound like an American bar band performing at half-speed at the bottom of a ...
Björk: Björk: Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1994
LAST TIME I SAW BJÖRK ON STAGE SHE WAS WITH THE Sugarcubes and I didn’t really see her at all: either Einar the Irritating or ...
Band, The: Heart & Soul: The Band
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1994
MENTION THE BAND TO PEOPLE IN 1993 and the chances are they'll say: "What band?" So much for the enduring legacy of the finest group ...
Report by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1994
Barney Hoskyns visits the idyllic Catskill mountain retreat colonized by The Band, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and fellow bohemians. ...
Microglobe: Easy Dance & Musichall, Frankfurt an der Oder
Report by Dave Rimmer, MOJO, January 1994
IN THE CRAMPED LITTLE DJ BOOTH AT THE EASY DISCO, Frankfurt an der Oder – east Germany city of flatblocks and border posts – Berlin ...
Santana: Carlos Santana: Sacred Fire
Interview by Rob Steen, MOJO, January 1994
THE VERY LEAST YOU CAN SAY ABOUT CARLOS Santana is that he has always been a pleasant plucker. Surely no-one has ever coaxed as much ...
Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, January 1994
They were suburban loners who saw the potential for beauty inside the tawdry and extravagant. Together they won attention and success. As Suede step into ...
Boulevard of Broken Dreams: A Trip Down the Sunset Strip
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1994
SUNSET BOULEVARD: the very name is synonymous with dreams, unrealities, tableaux of palm trees and convertibles in the golden light of southern California. Billy ...
Bert Jansch, Pentangle: Bert Jansch: Album reissues
Review by David Cavanagh, MOJO, January 1994
BENEATH THE STAGGERED, quadruple-decker title of It Don’t Bother Me, midway down an album cover that suggests Blue Note going folk, sits Bert Jansch in ...
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, January 1994
MUSIC ALWAYS SEEKS TO BREAK THE BOUNDS of language: indeed, the language of words is often inadequate to describe what music does as it enters ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, January 1994
I FIRST SAW MADNESS EARLY IN 1980 IN A SAN Francisco club. It was the city's mecca of punk but the locals didn't know quite ...
Steely Dan: Remastered - The Best Of Steely Dan (MCA)
Review by Nick Hornby, MOJO, January 1994
"Who was The Razor Boy? What is The Boston Rag? Where is Mizar-5?" ...
ZZ Top: Billy Gibbons: Texan Rabbi From Hell
Report and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, March 1994
QUICK! APART FROM long beards, grotesque guitars and cheap sunglasses, what do ZZ Top and our dearly beloved and highly respected Prime Minister have in ...
Lester Bangs: Rock 'n' roll as literature, literature as rock 'n' roll.
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1994
Whither Rock Gomorrah, the great gonzo hack's unpublished swansong? ...
Frank Zappa: Dr Zircon's Secret Lab
Memoir by Miles, MOJO, March 1994
I FIRST MET FRANK Zappa in July 1967, outside the Garrick Theater at 152 Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village. He was standing on the sidewalk, ...
Eric Clapton: The Odyssey: The Making Of Eric Clapton
Retrospective and Interview by Harry Shapiro, MOJO, March 1994
Of all the legends of the land of Greece, few are as epic and ill-starred as the tale of Eric Clapton, his five mates and ...
Review by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, March 1994
THESE DAYS, ALTERNATIVE = ANTIQUATED. Almost all alternative rockers pay homage to a bygone golden age (although they disagree about which is the genre that ...
Janis Joplin: Janis (Columbia/Legacy)
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, March 1994
DYLAN FELL OFF his motorcycle, The Beatles broke up and Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin paid the full price of ‘60s rock stardom ...
Pavement: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, March 1994
THERE WAS MUCH wailing and rending of hair throughout the land at the news that Pavement had parted ways with their crazed 40-something drummer Gary ...
Voodoo Queens: Voodod Queens: Chocolate Revenge
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, March 1994
UNREPENTANT BAD GIRLS with a taste for culinary and bibulous excess, the Voodoo Queens have cannily put their career back on track with a debut ...
Primal Scream: Hell's Angels: Primal Scream
Memoir by Tim Tooher, MOJO, April 1994
Last year Primal Scream's pilgrimage to the holiest sources of the Devil's music brought them to Memphis, where they recorded their newest album Give Out ...
Van Morrison: The Great Hall, Exeter University
Live Review by Johnny Black, MOJO, April 1994
MAN. VAN. THE. UNTIL NOW THE ONLY WELL-KNOWN PHRASE or saying into which these three words could be re-assembled has been a synonym for irascible ...
Cypress Hill: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, April 1994
THERE'S A KID slumped at the top of the Brixton academy stairs, his head poised vomitatiously over a large plastic bin. All you can see ...
Interview by David Sinclair, MOJO, April 1994
THEY SAY THERE'S ONE IN EVERY CROWD. BUT HE'S ALWAYS hard to spot because he looks so normal. Quiet, polite, a little shy even. You ...
Kirsty MacColl: Pillar To Post
Interview by Rob Steen, MOJO, April 1994
A TIP. DON'T TELL KIRSTY MACCOLL SHE IS OUR FINEST FEMALE songwriter. Not even if you are besotted with Titanic Days, her latest and greatest ...
Emmylou Harris: Pieces Of The Sky
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1994
WHEN GRAM PARSONS 'DISCOVERED' Emmylou Harris in late 1971, she was working as a folkie in Washington DC, and singing the occasional country tune like ...
Tim Buckley: Live At The Troubadour 1969
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1994
HE WAS, ABOVE all, a beautiful boy. Sure, the album sleeves show those impossible good looks steadily thickening into manhood and by 1974's Look At ...
Rolling Stones, The, Charlie Watts: Charlie Watts: The Rock
Interview by Robert Sandall, MOJO, May 1994
INTERVIEWS WITH CHARLIE WATTS were once memorably described as being "as rare as rocking horse shit". Like many of the jazz players he admires so ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, May 1994
FORGET EVERYTHING you know about what great music is – Bessie Smith, The Beatles, Neil Young, Al Green, all gone (not forever, just for 40 ...
Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac: Peter Green: The Supernatural
Retrospective and Interview by Harry Shapiro, MOJO, May 1994
PETE MOODY Former bass player with The Grebbels – "We were support band to The Yardbirds at the Crawdaddy and Peter used to come along ...
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, MOJO, May 1994
Three decades and 140 million albums later, the sheer familiarity of the Pink Floyd phenomenon obscures the strangeness of it all. Unlike any of their ...
XTC: Andy Partridge Confronts His Lifelong Enemy - Stagefright!
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 1994
This is an interview with Andy Partridge. ...
Nirvana: Kurt Cobain 1967-1994
Obituary by Nick Kent, MOJO, June 1994
NIRVANA SINGER AND SONGWRITER. THE FIRST TRUE ROCK AND ROLL STAR OF THE NINETIES. ...
Review by Ian Birch, MOJO, June 1994
"I love Dusty Springfield. I wanted to name our daughter Dusty but I knew we couldn't because, I mean, Dusty Springsteen...She had a nice big, ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, June 1994
WHEN NICK DRAKE'S Five Leaves Left first came out in 1968, albums with gatefold sleeves by moody songwriters accompanied by orchestras were almost two a ...
Sonic Youth: Experimental Jet Set, Trash & No Star
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, June 1994
THIS IS SONIC Youth's tenth album in all, bootlegs excluded, and it finds them making a determined and ultimately successful effort not to settle into ...
J.J. Cale: J.J.Cale: No Name, No Number, No Pack Drill
Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, July 1994
HE IS THE MOST unrecognizable man in pop music; success, it seems, comes to him only when he wants it. And a major part of ...
Review and Interview by Chris Salewicz, MOJO, July 1994
WOOSTOCK BEGAN ON A GOLF course. Three years before they were to be responsible for Governor John Rockefeller declaring the Woodstock Festival area "a state ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, July 1994
AS FAR AS I KNOW, Smokey Robinson and Frank Zappa never met. However, if they had, five'll getcha ten they'd have ended up talking ...
Heartbreakers, The, Johnny Thunders: Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F.
Review by Nina Antonia, MOJO, July 1994
THIS IS NOT PUNK: THIS IS EDDIE COCHRAN and Gene Vincent dragged screaming into 1977. ...
Who, The: The Who: 30 Years Of Maximum R&B
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1994
APART FROM THE BARRON KNIGHTS AT BERTRAM MILLS Circus, the first group I ever saw live was The Who: It could have been Spooky Tooth, ...
Eddi Reader: Hush (Blanco Y Negro)
Review by Nick Hornby, MOJO, July 1994
EDDI READER WAS THE SINGER IN FAIRGROUND Attraction. Fairground Attraction had a Number 1 hit single with 'Perfect'. 'Perfect' annoyed the hell out of you, ...
Syd Barrett: The Madcap Laughs/Barrett/Opel
Review by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, July 1994
IN A RECENT EDITION OF A MAGAZINE THAT SHALL REMAIN nameless, some clever-dick had this to say: "No-one likes Syd Barrett except for the kind ...
Damned, The: The Damned: Eternally Damned: The Very Best Of (Music Collection)
Review by Miles, MOJO, July 1994
THE DAMNED WERE THE FIRST PUNK band to release a single ('New Rose') and to get an album out and in the charts, but it's ...
Undertones, The: The Undertones reissues
Review by Susan Compo, MOJO, July 1994
The Undertones/Hypnotised/Positive Touch/The Sin Of Pride /The Peel Sessions Album ...
Little Feat: The One That Got Away
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1994
OK, SO THERE aren't many of them, but Little Feat's 1975 show at the Rainbow Theatre was one LEGENDARY GIG EVERYONE SAYS THEY SAW that ...
Joy Division: Someone Take These Dreams Away
Retrospective and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1994
HERE ARE THE young men, a weight on their shouldersHere are the young men, well where have they been?We knocked on the doors of hell's ...
Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, August 1994
"DO 'TOAD'!" THAT WAS THE TENDER CATCHPHRASE THAT every youth used to yell at Ginger Baker every time he took his place behind his amazing ...
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, August 1994
I'M MARTIN," SAYS THE ONE WITH THE CURLY HAIR. "D'you know Ken Dodd's dad's dog died?" ...
Clash, The: The Clash on Broadway (2)
Interview by Chris Salewicz, MOJO, August 1994
Joe Strummer talks to Chris Salewicz ...
Jeff Buckley: In At The Deep End
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, August 1994
AWARE HE COULD be unfairly accused of trading on the family name, Jeff Buckley, Tim Buckley's 27-year-old son, has spent the last three years honing ...
Spin Doctors: The Spin Doctors
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 1994
AT FIRST GLANCE there is little to distinguish the 150,000 revellers gathered on the opening day of the 1994 Glastonbury Festival from the millionaire rock ...
Eagles, The: The Eagles: Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, California
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, August 1994
THE BEST – AND CERTAINLY MOST SUCCINCT – REVIEW OF this, the opening night of the reunited Eagles' concert tour, came midway through guitarist Joe ...
James Brown, Valentines Park, Ilford
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1994
TEN MINUTES BEFORE JAMES BROWN IS DUE TO APPEAR ON AN English stage for the first time since his release from prison, there is an ...
Oasis: Everything Rock Delights In
Report and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 1994
THE MARQUEE, about a month ago. the place is solid with grinning loons, many of whom hold should-know-better jobs in the music business. I'm here ...
Clash, The: The Clash on Broadway
Retrospective by Chris Salewicz, MOJO, August 1994
IF THERE WAS ONE PIVOTAL EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE Clash's assault on the USA it was the season of 17 shows they played ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1994
LEONARD COHEN'S LITTLE NICHE IN THE marketplace has expanded somewhat over the last decade – and mercifully so. Being the bedsit prophet of gloom is ...
Robert Wyatt: Going Back A Bit – A Little History of Robert Wyatt (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, August 1994
HE IS A GREAT ENGLISHMAN, a pragmatic jazz buff, a witty and wise lyricist, an ingenious instrumentalist; but it's by his singing that Robert Wyatt ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: VooDoo Lounge
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 1994
CONFRONTED BY THE FIRST STUDIO ALBUM IN NEARLY FIVE years, for most Stones fans the question is not, Is it as good as Exile/Beggars/name your ...
Strange New Ways To Kill A Rock Critic
Overview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, September 1994
PREHENSILE Monkey-Tailed Skink? Screeching Weasel? PopDefect? Anus The Menace? ...
John Entwistle, Who, The: John Entwistle
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 1994
MY GENERATIONA LOT OF THE SOLOS I PLAYED WERE MUCH FASTER AND MORE interesting than the ones that finally went on the record. ...
Neil Young: A Conversation with Elliot Roberts
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1994
FEW OTHER artist/manager relationships have endured as long as the one between Neil Young and Elliot Roberts. It is nearly 30 years since the lanky, ...
Comment by Dave Marsh, MOJO, September 1994
"Coming to the conclusion that he was a second-rank artist scared the hell out of even a veteran heretic like myself." Neil Young unpraised by ...
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1994
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS after it was recorded at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles, 'Cinnamon Girl' sounds like it was cut the day before yesterday on a ...
Essay by Ben Thompson, MOJO, September 1994
"Last night I dreamt I kissed Neil Young / If I was a boy I guess it would be fun." Sonic Youth, Creme Brulee, 1992. ...
Only Ones, The: Only Ones: The Peel Sessions Album
Review by Nina Antonia, MOJO, September 1994
IF THERE WAS ONLY ONE SONG IN THE universe and it was 'Another Girl, Another Planet', I would still have all I ever wanted. ...
Johnny Cash: American Recordings
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, September 1994
SOMETIME IN THE LATE '80S, Columbia Records unceremoniously dropped Johnny Cash. No matter that Cash had been one of Sun's Million Dollar Quaret, alongside ...
Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, September 1994
OVER THE LAST FEW MONTHS Jeff Buckley has become a contender. A minor critical furore greeted his first live mini-LP, while a handful of mesmeric ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1994
OK, PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR A SHOCK. PRINCE'S new album – a last gasp from his 16-year career on Warner Brothers – is about sex. It ...
Buffalo Springfield : Expecting To Fly
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 1994
WHEN NEIL YOUNG arrived in February 1966, Los Angeles was the pop capital of America. For a city so derided, usually by its Californian rival ...
Interview by Edward Helmore, MOJO, October 1994
"MUSHING, UH, I MEAN MOSHING," says Joe Cocker when asked to explain the difference between Woodstocks '69 and '94, after playing a standout festival opener. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1994
WHEN BOZ SCAGGS MADE HIS FIRST tentative steps back into the music industry that he had abandoned for most of the '80s, he found his ...
Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, October 1994
BRYAN FERRY SHOULD NEED LITTLE introduction. The first five Roxy Music albums – Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, Stranded, Country Life and Siren – defined ...
Chrissie Hynde, Pretenders, The: Chrissie Hynde
Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, October 1994
IT IS JUST POSSIBLE, I SUPPOSE, THAT SOMEWHERE IN Chrissie Hynde's attic, there lurks a portrait of a withered old crone hunched over an electric ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1994
"ONE THING I'VE NOTICED driving around in this part of Switzerland is that there are no flowers. It's relentlessly green in Geneva – they must ...
John Martyn: The Boy Can't Help It
Interview by Nick Coleman, MOJO, October 1994
Rambunctious loons, Soave-swilling romantics, tireless anarchists, people who fill baths with dead fish, all detect in him some sort of kindred spirit. John Martyn by ...
Retrospective by Susan Compo, MOJO, October 1994
AS NORMAN MAILER ONCE SAID, "All blondes are natural blondes." Look it up in any book of pop quotes and you'll probably find a picture ...
Jim Dickinson, Alex Chilton: Jim Dickinson: Earth Father
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Gordon, MOJO, October 1994
Backwoods, Mississippi. Home to Jim Dickinson, the revered producer and professional redneck whose work spans the story of Southern music from Sun Records to Big ...
Review by Susan Compo, MOJO, October 1994
AS NORMAN MAILER ONCE SAID, "ALL blondes are natural blondes." Look it up in any book of pop quotes and you'll probably find a picture ...
Sinead O'Connor: Universal Mother
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1994
AN ALBUM ABOUT MOTHERS – MOTHER as God, mother as Ireland, mother as sex, mother as violence, giver of life, saver of life, withholder of ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1994
WHILE BRITAIN WAS IN THE THROES of blues-boom mania in the late '60s, American youth had little time for that particular shade of black music. ...
Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship: Up The Revolution? F**k The Revolution!
Review and Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, October 1994
PLANEBRANES. THAT'S WHAT obsessive aficionados of Jefferson Airplane and all that venerable group's offshoots – Jefferson Starship, Starship (two different enterprises, confusingly enough), Mickey Thomas's ...
Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor
Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, MOJO, November 1994
"IF YOU'RE NOT READY for it, it's terrible, it's noise. It's the most uncommercial record that's ever been in the Top 50," says Trent ...
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, November 1994
YOU CAN JUST HEAR THE PHONE CALL. "The album's ready. Hire the Irish castle!" When the world's biggest bands have something to promote, money's no ...
Liz Phair: Fresh outta Guyville
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1994
NO-ONE WAS MORE SURPRISED THAN LIZ PHAIR when her precocious double-album debut became the alternative-rock succès d'estime of 1993. "I was just a neighbourhood kid ...
Grant Lee Buffalo: The trio from Paranoid City
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1994
ONE GLANCE AT the music and movie tastes of acclaimed rock trio Grant Lee Buffalo would tell you that their home town is Los Angeles. ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin: Page and Plant
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
THE DATE: Thursday, September 29,1994. THE PLACE: a table outside a café in Tottenham Street, London W1. THE CAST: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Mat Snow ...
Elvis Presley: Love Him Tender, Love Him True
Book Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 1994
Peter Guralnick: Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley ...
Joni Mitchell: Our Lady of Sorrows
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1994
SHE ALMOST bounds into the room, this dowager duchess of American rock, fresh from whooping it up for Mojo's photographer on the street outside manager ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
AT A TIME WHEN X-CHROMOSOME COUNTRY has never resided further from the factory floor, honky-tonk and dreamed-of mansion on the hill, Joy Lynn White sings ...
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, December 1994
THE INTRINSIC NICENESS OF JOAN BAEZ is proving a problem for David Gray. "Yes, she's very nice," he admits again, shaking his head as if ...
Ian Gillan, Deep Purple: Ian Gillan
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 1994
THE THIRD VERSION OF DEEP PURPLE TO FEATURE Ian Gillan on lead vocal has just toured the world. Shortly before the Japanese leg, guitarist Ritchie ...
Prefab Sprout: Phone Home: Paddy McAloon
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1994
"I'M ACTUALLY going for the record of being the longest hold-out character on the face of the earth. I'm trying to evaporate into a realm ...
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1994
Combustible blues, not as in Delta 12-bar, but as in Beefheart, braggadocio and Mick Jagger’s dick. ...
Percy Sledge: A Beautiful Life
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1967, THE MACON, GEORGIA, office of Phil Walden and Associates, management and booking agents, was thronging with the most heavyweight soul ...
Pink Floyd: Earl's Court Exhibition Centre, London
Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1994
WE'RE THREE minutes in and the family in front of me (mother, father and two smaller facsimile editions thereof, dressed identically in Division Bell T-shirts) ...
Todd Rundgren: The Forum, Kentish Town
Live Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, December 1994
THE ANKLE-LENGTH SKIRT AND black-and-white mane threw us at first, but not for long. The Runt always was a dead ringer for Charlie George. Besides, ...
J.J. Cale: J.J.Cale: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1994
WHISPERING BOB Harris introduces him as "very simply a legend", this grizzled geezer who's spent the intermission on stage with his back to the audience ...
Orbital: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1994
THE WAY THAT ORBITAL wanted to make music, one of the Hartnoll brothers said last year in a rare theoretical moment, was like an idealised ...
J.J. Cale: J J Cale at the Hammersmith Apollo
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1994
WHISPERING BOB HARRIS introduces him "very simply a legend", this grizzled geezer who's just spent the intermission onstage with his back to the audience impersonating ...
Nirvana: Unplugged In New York
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1994
IT SEEMS A PARTICULARILY VICIOUS IRONY:THAT A BAND THAT electricity seemed to flow through, a band who at their best could fling the weight of ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes: Amorica
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, December 1994
FORBIDDEN PLEASURES ARE GETTING harder to find. What price true rebel music when disco, metal, mid-'70s pop and all the grizzled outlaws of yesteryear are ...
New Order: The Best of New Order (London)
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1994
LESS A SUCCESSOR TO THE SUBSTANCE compilation than an update, The Best Of New Order takes a very short-term view of the group's career, reprising ...
Creation: The Creation: "Red with Purple Flashes"
Retrospective and Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1994
Thus guitarist Eddie Phillips described the sound of the short-lived band who inspired everyone from Jimmy Page to Alan McGee. Please welcome the second dawn ...
Humble Pie, Steve Marriott, Small Faces, The: Steve Marriott: All Or Nothing
Retrospective by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1994
The late Steve Marriott was, in his prime, a writer of transcendent English pop songs. He was, to the end, a blues and soul shouter ...
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, 1995
Home Taping Is Saving Music From The Shaggs to... Bruce Forsyth? Joe Foster’s Rev-Ola label, born of "frenzied tape-swapping," is home to all manner ...
David Bowie, Morrissey: David Bowie/Morrissey: London, Wembley Arena
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1995
THE THIRD OF four nights of two thinnish white pop Dukes with great barbers and a well-honed sense of alienation. Seventies icon Bowie and 80s ...
Cramps, The: The Cramps: World of the Interiors
Interview by Susan Compo, MOJO, 1995
Parakeets, serial killer art and "flame-jobs" at the local boneyard. Yep, it’s the return of The Cramps. ...
Sam Dees: Whaddya Mean, You've Never Heard Of... Sam Dees?
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, 1995
AT SIX FOOT FOUR and two-hundred-plus pounds, Sam Dees is a soul giant in more ways than one. One of black America’s premier songsmiths, he ...
R.E.M., 10cc: Conference Call: Mike Mills talks to 10cc!
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1995
ON THE receiving end of the PR’s pointy red fingernail: Sylvie Simmons... ...
Review by Edward Helmore, MOJO, 1995
FROM AN ABANDONED whorehouse 50 miles outside of Austin, Texas, comes Filth Pig, the latest sonic roadkill of heavy-riffing industrial grooves and big beats from ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, January 1995
MUSIC SEEPS OUT of the streets in Memphis. It's everywhere, in bars and clubs, but also somehow just hanging in the air, almost as if ...
Sheryl Crow: As Sheryl Crow Flies
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1995
EIGHT YEARS BACK, a young music teacher from Kennett, a tiny Bible Belt town ("Twin Peaks. Three stop lights, one police station, one high school.") ...
Meat Puppets: When Kurt Met Curt: Meat Puppets
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, January 1995
IF YOU WANT TO know why Meat Puppets touched Kurt Cobain so deeply that he covered not one but three of their songs for Unplugged ...
Sam Cooke: The Soul Stirrer: Sam Cooke
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1995
FEW ENTERTAINERS have fallen quite so far from grace as Sam Cooke did when he died, 30 years ago, at the Hacienda Motel in south-central ...
Randy Newman: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1995
HE IS TEN SECONDS into his second song, 'Yellow Man', when a bank of spots from Miss Saigon bathes him in a hepatic yellow light. ...
Donovan: Sunshine Superman/Mellow Yellow/The Hurdy Gurdy Man/Barabajagal
Review by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, January 1995
HOW WAS IT that our "Celtic" hippie friend put it to Queen magazine in 1967? Oh, yes: "Pop is the perfect religious vehicle. It's as ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Live At The BBC
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, January 1995
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS on from their demise, The Beatles continue to exercise a hypnotic spell as the ur-myth of modernist pop culture. As befits the group ...
Laura Nyro: Union Chapel, Islington, London
Live Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, February 1995
WHEN LAURA PLAYED MONTEREY, nerves and rushed rehearsals saw her flounder as the hairies waited for Hendrix. Tonight there are enough baldies in the pews ...
Move It! The British Rock 'n' Roll Explosion
Overview by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 1995
FOR MOST PEOPLE OF 40 AND UNDER, British pop begins with The Beatles: this is the view that has been encouraged by rock writers ever ...
Profile by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1995
Prolific post-grunge Dylan type records dozens of songs for several labels, then rolls-up and smokes the rejects. ...
Bruce Springsteen: Born To Run
Retrospective by Ed Ward, MOJO, February 1995
LORD, WHAT DID I EVER SEE IN BRUCE Springsteen? But I did once see something, and even went on record as having seen it. In ...
Cliff Richard, Shadows, The: Move it! The Butch Rock 'n' Roll Explosion
Retrospective by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 1995
FOR MOST PEOPLE OF 40 AND UNDER, British pop begins with The Beatles: this is the view that has been encouraged by rock writers ever ...
Billy Fury: Breaking Down The Walls Of Heartache
Retrospective by Bob Stanley, MOJO, February 1995
"There's only ever been two English rock 'n' roll singers – Johnny Rotten and Billy Fury." – Ian Dury, 1978 ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, February 1995
I HAVE A PLACE HERE IN THE Catskill mountains in New York state, about nine miles away from Woodstock. I've had it since 1988, before ...
Cliff Richard: The Great Pretender
Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 1995
CLIFF IS THE ARCHETYPAL BRITISH POP STAR. Born in 1940, his extraordinary career began with the release of his first record, 'Move It', in autumn ...
Shadows, The, Hank Marvin: Four-Eyes, One Vision: The Shadows
Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 1995
BRIAN RANKIN GREW UP IN NEWCASTLE: WHEN he was 16, in 1957, he travelled to London with his school friend Bruce Welch "in an attempt ...
Marty Wilde: The Blackheath Jungle
Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 1995
MARTY WILDE WAS, ALONG WITH CLIFF, BRITAIN'S BIGGEST ROCK star from 1958 through 1960: there was even a girl's comic named after him. Born Reginald ...
Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 1995
HELEN SHAPIRO WAS BRITAIN'S FIRST TEENAGE FEMALE pop star. Born in 1946, she made her first record at the age of 14, for Norrie Paramor ...
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, February 1995
Berry Gordy has finally told his own story. Harvey Kubernik met him in LA. ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis: Father, Son & Hillbilly Cat
Essay by Mick Farren, MOJO, February 1995
Boy-King/Fertility God brings wonder and prosperity to the land, is cut down but manages to transcend death... The ballooning Cult of Elvis is turning into ...
Stone Roses, The: The Stone Roses: Second Coming
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, February 1995
IF THE BYRDS HAD BEEN WELSH; IF Lenny Kravitz shopped at Kwik Save; if the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin or Wishbone Ash or Eddie ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: The Rapture
Review by Susan Compo, MOJO, February 1995
A FEW SPEED BUMPS DOWN THE TIMELINE OF rock, past the new wave of new wave and the return of baggy, and it seems the ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, February 1995
RETURNING TO COLLECTIVE ACTION after last year's earth-shaking individual effort Hips N Makers, Kristin Hersh sounds happy to have some back-up noise behind her again. ...
Odysseys and Oddities: Jon Savage compiles the definitive Space-Rock Tape
Guide by Jon Savage, MOJO, March 1995
MUSIC AND THE cosmos have a special relationship, bound by mathematics, spirituality and that basic human need to get out there. Just as important as ...
Dan Penn: Once More With Feeling
Interview by Robert Gordon, MOJO, March 1995
Otis. Janis. Aretha. Gram. Each cut classic songs by the hallowed Dan Penn. Coaxed out of retirement, he recorded last year’s universally acclaimed Do Right ...
Elvis Presley, Leiber and Stoller: Jerry Leiber And Mike Stoller: By Royal Appointment
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, March 1995
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the greatest rock 'n' roll songwriting team of all time, have their songs celebrated in the musical Smokey Joe's Cafe ...
Interview by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, March 1995
Chicago’s infamous Royal Trux have finally made the major-label album of "low-down Sticky-Fingered raunch ‘n’ roll" they’ve always threatened to. Does the big time beckon? ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995
Rock 'n' roll treated her mean, but Ruth Brown is back with a vengeance. ...
Blue Nile, The: Paul Buchanan Phones Home
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995
WE'VE BEEN IN ALL sorts of places for a couple of years, just meandering around the world on a fairly frugal basis – America, Italy, ...
Interview by Susan Whitall, MOJO, March 1995
High in the US charts with his Greatest Hits album, leather-lunged god of heartland AOR Bob Seger talks to Susan Whittall about punk rock, "ferocious" ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Burnin': Bob Marley and the Wailers take Britain
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1995
Babylon's freezing. The Wailers arrive on a mission to ignite below-zero Britain. Thus begins the demise of the original band and the rise of a ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Can't Fight The Youth: Bob Marley's Early Years
Retrospective by Chris Salewicz, MOJO, March 1995
1945. THE PREGNANCY WAS PROBLEM-FREE. On the first Sunday of February, 1945, Cedella Marley went to church as usual. The next day she hoped to ...
Fats Domino: ‘Fats’ Domino: A Free Ride For The Fat Man
Report by Charlie Gillett, MOJO, March 1995
Antoine ‘Fats’ Domino is making a killing from a song he had nothing to do with. Charlie Gillett tells the story of a bizarre credit ...
Stevie Wonder: Radio City Music Hall, New York
Live Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, March 1995
WHEN STEVIE WONDER EASES INTO 'YOU AND I', ACCOMPANIED only by his acoustic grand piano, the whole auditorium goes quiet. Not just silent, like nobody's ...
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, March 1995
THIS IS A brilliant record: densely layered, full of barely controlled nervous energy, paranoid under surveillance, at times more intimate than you’d wish – like ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1995
SUCCESS SWEPT OVER SANTANA WITH A suddenness which might have destroyed a less durable group. ...
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Greatest Hits
Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, March 1995
THE VOICE IS ALL GRAVEL AND FIVE o'clock shadow, crumbling with every line. The piano caresses. The organ surges and swirls. The guitar soars like ...
Remembering Rock Dreams: Guy Peellaert and Nik Cohn
Retrospective and Interview by Paul Rambali, MOJO, March 1995
DO YOU STILL have a copy of Rock Dreams? If you were a rock fan in the early ‘70s, when it was first published, ...
Fairport Convention: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1995
TWO FAIRPORTS STILL STICK IN my mind from the late '60s, early '70s. The first was London's answer to Jefferson Airplane, furiously eclectic and frequently ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Nina Antonia, MOJO, April 1995
WELCOME TO THE DUDE ranch aka the Royal Albert Hall. Legions of longhairs, clutching their Amorica Or Bust tour posters, strut into the luscious red ...
Linda Ronstadt: Homecoming Queen: Linda Ronstadt
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 1995
Thirty years ago Linda Ronstadt left Tucson for the folk-rock Mecca of Los Angeles. Now the first lady of softly streamlined country returns to the ...
Retrospective by Richard Cook, MOJO, April 1995
Four decades on from the premature death of Charlie Parker in March 1955 the world remains split between the dazzled – including fans as disparate ...
Retrospective by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, April 1995
"Hear this, and remind yourself why pop music was invented in the first place." ...
Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons: Soul On Ice: Clarence Clemons
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1995
HE'S HUGE, AS A LEGEND SHOULD BE. Solid as a monument. A big man, built like the American football player that be was before a ...
Chris Whitley: Bloody Valentines
Interview by Edward Helmore, MOJO, April 1995
After the spooked country blues of his debut, Chris Whitley returns with an album of "psychosexual" songs about breaking up with his wife. ...
Comment by Lindsay Hutton, MOJO, April 1995
BEFORE THE RELEASE OF Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Dick Dale was simply "the man who invented surf music" and his craft remained generally unknown outside ...
Wilde Flowers, The: Wilde Flowers: Tales Of Canterbury: The Wilde Flowers Story (Voiceprint)
Essay by Rob Chapman, MOJO, April 1995
Caravan, Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers & The Whole World: all grew from the stem of the legendary Wilde Flowers. Rob Chapman tells their story. ...
Stevie Wonder: Conversation Peace (Motown)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 1995
SO UNIQUE, SO ADVENTUROUS WAS Stevie Wonder in his ‘70s heyday that it’s especially upsetting to hear the occasionally hackneyed modern model. Not that we’ve ...
PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1995
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT PJ HARVEY IN A dress that doesn't quite gel and that's the something that she's chafed and worried at in her bruising, ...
Various: The Complete Sun Singles Vol 1 (Bear Family)
Review by Tony Russell, MOJO, April 1995
SUN RECORDS HAS A SPECIAL PLACE IN the history – or, if you never took to Presley, the demonology – of popular music, and the ...
Rod Stewart: Reasons To Believe
Guide by Nick Hornby, MOJO, May 1995
A fevered fan replays Rod's most ecstatic moments: hear the RBP playlist on Spotify! * ...
Interview by Mick Brown, MOJO, May 1995
THE WOMAN FROM ROD Stewart's management office suggests we should meet at her office in Beverly Hills; she would lead the way to Rod's house, ...
Interview by Rob Steen, MOJO, May 1995
Chris Isaak is back with a surprisingly angst-ridden album. Give a big hand to the ex-pug with a broken heart. ...
Teenage Fanclub: Mojo Rising: Teenage Fanclub
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 1995
MAYBE IT'S OPTIMISM born of the knowledge that they have a marvellous new album in the can, but Teenage Fanclub reckon that Spring has arrived. ...
El Vez: Greetings From Graciasland: El Vez
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, May 1995
TAKE A LIBERAL DOSE of Chicano consciousness and apply it to fully-realised musical pastiche, and what do you have? El Vez, the Mexican Elvis, no ...
Rod Stewart: Soddy In Gomorrah
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1995
"The '90s saw a new rock piety rise up against Rod Stewart and his 10 gallons of come." (Stephen J Malkmus, 'Vedder As Merton: 2001', ...
Screamin' Jay Hawkins: That's Entertainment: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Retrospective by Bill Millar, MOJO, May 1995
Psst. Hey, bud, you want "cryptic tales of mojo-bones, constipation, the Mau Mau, cunnilingus and flannel lipped, bald-headed women"? You got it! Ladeez and gennelmen, ...
Rod Stewart: Roderick Of Hollywood...
Retrospective by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, May 1995
ROD STEWART IN THE '80S? HERE'S WHERE THE MEMORIES really fly. While it's true that the man had just produced some of the most commercially ...
Stooges, The: The Stooges: Night of the Iguana
Retrospective by Paul Trynka, MOJO, May 1995
When Iggy Pop fled to New York in 1971 he was a rock pariah. Then came a notorious photoshoot and a rebirth. ...
Tindersticks: The Tindersticks' Second Album
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, May 1995
THERE'S A WONDERFULLY hushed, still quality about Tindersticks that pulls you closer to the speakers. Casually overheard, much of this album sounds like little more ...
Move, The: The Move: The BBC Sessions
Review by Miles, MOJO, May 1995
THE MOVE CAME from Birmingham but got their start at the Marquee in 1966. The band – Roy Wood (guitar/vocals), Bev Bevan (drums/vocals), Carl Wayne ...
Scott Walker, Walker Brothers, The: Scott Walker: “That Francis Bacon, In-The-Face Whoops Factor...”
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 1995
TWENTY-TWO YEAR OLD Noel Scott Engel was on the run from Uncle Sam. He was fleeing from a country that would never connect with his ...
Jack Bruce: Sound Your Funky Horn: Jack Bruce
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 1995
Jack Bruce selects the high points of his illustrious career. ...
Ruben and the Jets: For Real/Con Safos
Review by Miles, MOJO, May 1995
WHEN FRANK ZAPPA released his 1968 Cruising With Ruben & The Jets album of parodies of '50s R&B and doo wop, a number of radio ...
Billy Childish: And In His Spare Time… Billy Childish
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, June 1995
JAMES BROWN CAN stick his tag as "the hardest working man in showbiz". When it comes to the most productive performer in punk, painting and ...
Pavement: Mojo Rising: Pavement
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1995
WE SHOULD HAVE seen it coming, really. While other leading practitioners of lo-fi American rock – Beck, Sebadoh, Royal Trux, The Grifters, Guided By Voices ...
13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson: His Own Private Realm: Roky Erickson
Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, June 1995
Come with us now to the home of erstwhile 13th Floor Elevator Roky Erickson: a little shack on the outskirts of reality. And marvel how, ...
Willie Mitchell, Al Green: Willie Mitchell: Tell’Em Willie Boy Was Here
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, June 1995
Willie Mitchell, maestro of the Memphis soul sound that gave the world Al Green, has his life’s work celebrated by the box set Hi Times: ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1995
You’d like your album smoothly airbrushed with the minimum fuss, and expertly streamlined to slot into a tidy marketing profile? Don’t phone Brian Eno then. ...
Band, The: The Band: Live at Watkins Glen
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, June 1995
"They got their own thing together that takes you to a certain place. Takes you where they want to go... they play their things on ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1995
POP IS BACK, rock is dead (again). That, at any rate, is one conclusion we could draw from the success of Bjork Gudmundsdottir. ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, June 1995
THE BUCKFAST BEATLES, THE Belshill Beach Byrds: whatever you want to call them, the Teenage Fanclub are back. And their new album (their sixth, if ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 1995
At first it was barely a string of fairy lights. Then it was something called an Azimuth Converter. And then a giant screen, a Spitfire, ...
Supergrass: Mojo Rising: Supergrass
Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, July 1995
Now trespassing in the charts, three princes of rascal rock… ...
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, July 1995
Tell us about the new American Prayer. ...
Russell Simmons: The Emperor Of Rap
Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, July 1995
SO WHY DO THEY CALL RUSSELL Simmons 'Rush'? The Def Jam emperor loses little time in answering this question. ...
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, July 1995
'Laura We're On Our Last Go Round'Single 1962 (Youngstown) ...
Tim Buckley: Talking In Tongues
Interview by Steve Turner, MOJO, July 1995
IF TIM BUCKLEY was alive today I'd probably get in touch with him to apologise. You probably don’t remember me, I'd say, but I interviewed ...
Retrospective by Martin Aston, MOJO, July 1995
IN 1965, THE LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE CHEETAH dubbed three emerging singer-songwriters – Jackson Browne, Steve Noonan, and Tim Buckley – 'The Orange County Three'. ...
Portishead: Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1995
"That," says a chap in the gents after the show "was THE oddest gig I've ever seen." ...
Rolling Stones, The: Rolling Stones in Hyde Park # 1
Memoir by Mark Cooper, MOJO, July 1995
THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE VERY nature of being a schoolboy that necessitates getting caught. In the summer of 1969, I was boarding in the lower ...
Rolling Stones, The: Rolling Stones in Hyde Park # 2
Memoir by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, July 1995
MENTION THE STONES IN THE PARK to me or a dozen or so other guys from Stationers' School in Hornsey and, chances are, we'd start ...
Rolling Stones, The: Rolling Stones in Hyde Park # 3
Memoir by Penny Reel, MOJO, July 1995
IT IS OF COURSE A memorable occasion among the many I experience during years in pursuit of musical diversion, although in truth I barely remember ...
Obituary by Penny Reel, MOJO, July 1995
In January, Penny Reel witnessed the last British appearance by Delroy Wilson. Here he pays tribute to the reggae ruler famously namechecked by The Clash. ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, July 1995
SHE'S BARELY IN HER THIRTIES, SHE became the voice and face of 10,000 Maniacs as a 17-year-old and yet there's always been something olde-worlde and ...
Marvin Gaye: The Master 1961-1984 (Motown)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1995
BIOGRAPHER DAVID RITZ HAS WRITTEN thousands and thousands of words on the ineffable talent of Marvin Gaye. This is possible. So all-encompassing are the pleasures ...
Review by David Quantick, MOJO, July 1995
I Should Coco begins with one bloke muttering "know wot I mean?", another shouting "ONE TWO FREE FAW!" and an almighty shower of drumming. It ...
Review by Tony Russell, MOJO, July 1995
WHEN BLUES PEOPLE WAS PUBLISHED in 1963, LeRoi Jones became the first black American to have written a book about the blues. It did not ...
Steve Peregrin Took, Tyrannosaurus Rex: Steve Peregrin Took: Staring At The Stars
Memoir by Mick Farren, MOJO, August 1995
Mick Farren remembers his friend Steve Peregrin Took, sidekick to Marc Bolan in Tyrannosaurus Rex and pursuer of an elusive fame... ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1995
If anyone has done it his way, it is "that gonzo party guy" Warren Zevon. And over the years such luminaries as Dylan, Neil Young ...
Vulgar Boatmen, The: The Vulgar Boatmen
Profile and Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, August 1995
LONGEVITY, STABILITY, COMMITMENT – this is what has enabled the likes of The Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead to become the biggest draws in ...
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, August 1995
DODGY'S PRECOCIOUS QUOTABILITY, from the early "Rock'n'roll's been making love to the world for 40 years – we're the band to make it come" to ...
Interview by Sid Griffin, MOJO, August 1995
ON THE CHOPPY WATERS OF THE J PERCY PRIEST RESERVOIR, just outside Nashville, the recreational boats on what's called the Redneck Riviera sport more Confederate ...
Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, August 1995
"IT STARTS OFF WITH A BIG CHUNK OF WOOD," says Ben Harper. And it's not Nick Nolte's acting technique he's talking about, or the history ...
Andy Summers, Police, The: Andy Summers
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 1995
TOWARDS THE END OF The Police, I thought we were turning into a backing group for Sting. I thought, I've got more going than this ...
Pretenders, The: The Pretenders: Jacob Street Studios, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 1995
MIDWAY THROUGH, Chrissie Hynde turns to her audience of mainly invited guests and smiles. "This is easy, isn’t it? This is obviously the way to ...
Brian Wilson: Lost In Music: Brian Wilson
Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, August 1995
Some call him a tortured genius. Others say he’s just insane. Some claim he’s suffering through an extended hiatus between transcendent works. Others reckon he’s ...
Allman Brothers Band: The Allman Brothers Band: Men Behaving Badly
Book Review by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, August 1995
Midnight Riders: The Story Of The Allman Brothers Band Scott Freeman (Little Browne) ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, August 1995
WHEN JOY DIVISION'S UNKNOWN PLEASURES was released in June, 1979, it sounded like it came from another planet. Of course, it's easy now to historicise ...
Dr. John: Dr John: The Very Best Of (Rhino)
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1995
IF THIS COMPILATION ULTIMATELY fails to live up to its title, it's at least partly due to the strain of trying to encapsulate a career ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, August 1995
It revolves slowly and with a dignified air of formality, and when light shines on it you get a strange dappled effect. That effect, for ...
Procol Harum: The Giant Shadow
Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, September 1995
What happens when the crowd invades the pitch in adulation just microseconds into the match? Nearly three decades after ‘Whiter Shade Of Pale’, Procol Harum ...
Stephin Merritt: The Pocket Symphonist: Stephin Merritt
Interview by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, September 1995
Stephin Merritt is the standard-bearer for a new pop aesthetic. "Music isn’t about performing out your soul," he avers. "It’s about making pretty objects you ...
Dr. John: Doctor John: An Incantation to the Jollamallawalla Gods
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1995
A QUARTER OF A CENTURY HAS PASSED SINCE MALCOLM Rebennack, trading under the sinisterly exotic stage name "Dr John The Night Tripper", descended the steps ...
Alanis Morissette: Alanis Morrisette
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 1995
IF ANY SONG THIS YEAR CAN BOAST A million-dollar couplet, it is 'You Oughta Know' from the album Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. "Is ...
Obituary by Charlie Gillett, MOJO, September 1995
Charlie Rich, who died in Memphis on July 25, was the ultimate square peg in a round hole: a jazz pianist promoted as a rock ...
High Llamas, The, Mercury Rev: Mercury Rev/ The High Llamas: LA2, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1995
THE DECOMMISSIONED DISCO dungeon that is LA2 is hardly the best place to see a group like The High Llamas. ...
Will Oldham: Palace Music: Viva Last Blues
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, September 1995
The albums of Palace eminence Will Oldham do not take long to listen to (this one lasts just over half an hour), but there is ...
Review by David Toop, MOJO, September 1995
WITH A FEW notable exceptions, Jungle has thus far been a music for singles and endless drum 'n' bass compilations. As the genre's first high ...
Pearl Jam, Neil Young: Neil Young: The Reading Festival
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1995
IT'S THE END OF SUMMER, and the temperature is plummeting. A vicious wind whips up the dustbowl that the Reading Festival site has become over ...
Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: Jerry Garcia: The Last Post
Obituary by Joel Selvin, MOJO, October 1995
Serenity Knolls lies at the bottom of a dead end road in northern Marin Country, California. The main building stands above a parking area surrounded ...
Steely Dan: The Return Of Steely Dan
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1995
ONCE UPON A TIME, they were the odd couple in rock. They wrote songs that featured knuckle-knotting chords and brain-twisting lyrics. They welded jazz and ...
Jimmy Cliff: Dread Inna Dean Street
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, October 1995
"I HAVEN'T KILLED ANYBODY...YET." Jimmy Cliff is joking. We think. Although at 8.45am in the Groucho Club in Soho's Dean Street it's difficult to he ...
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci: Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci: Aberconwy Centre, Llandudno
Live Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, October 1995
WITH ITS BARDS, novelists and massed choirs, the Eisteddfod is the central event in the Welsh cultural and social calendar: what is less well known ...
Pulp: His Little Percolations: Pulp's Jarvis Cocker puts the T in Britpop.
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1995
You came through the '70s revival relatively unscathed. Did it look like becoming a millstone? ...
George Jones, Tammy Wynette: Stand By Your Ex: George Jones and Tammy Wynette
Interview by Mark Cooper, MOJO, October 1995
Wait till I get you home...to Splitsville, Tennessee, where George Jones and Tommy Wynette have resided since the classic song D.I.V.O.R.C.E. came true following perhaps ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1995
IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME coming, but Newman’s Faust is finally here. Complete with choirs, orchestras, and stellar rock’n’roll guests, it’s surely the most ambitious ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, October 1995
"Fuck art, let's concept," suggests former Dame to his chrome-domed chum. "Umpteenth comeback is a corker!" cries a passing Charles Shaar Murray ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: Peel Slowly And See
Review by Lenny Kaye, MOJO, October 1995
The brief, brilliant life of The Velvet Underground, from jug-band rags to hypercool chronicles – experiments, cast-offs, fights and all – on five CDs. Immortal, ...
Colin Blunstone: Some Years (Legacy/Epic)
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 1995
SOME YEARS BURSTS open with an old Zombies song, 'She Loves The Way They Love Her', delivered in a distinctive, creamy tone, suggesting a delicious ...
George Jones, Tammy Wynette: George Jones & Tammy Wynette: Hammersmith Apollo, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1995
LONG AGO, in the days before hats and hi-tech rednecks, country music was a soap opera and George Jones and Tammy Wynette were its Dirty ...
Blur: Floral Hall, Winter Gardens, Eastbourne
Live Review by David Quantick, MOJO, November 1995
"Blimey," says Damon Albarn as he takes the stage. How apt, Blur, as even tiny children in their prams know, are the current monarchs of ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1995
WHATEVER PAUL McCARTNEY is on in 1995, they should dump it in the water supply. Talcum-pink of complexion and trim of figure, only a curious ...
John Lennon, Beatles, The: My Blue Period: John Lennon
Interview by Miles, MOJO, November 1995
WE DID THESE interviews on September 23 and 24, 1969, at Apple. When Allen Klein fired Ron Kass, the head of Apple Records, John and ...
Loudon Wainwright III: Professional Confessions: Loudon Wainwright
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, November 1995
INTELLECTUAL SINGER-songwriters, doncha jus' luv 'em? LW3 has been at it for 20 years, spilling his guts, sharing his fears and generally earning a living ...
War: Delivering the Ghetto: War
Review and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, November 1995
GIVEN THE CHOICE that exists in the Golden Earring department, it's scandalous that we've been forced to wait this long to hear War on CD. ...
Dr. Feelgood: Dr Feelgood: Looking Back
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, November 1995
It is but one of life’s minor ironies that both Sid James and Lee Brilleaux, two of England’s best-loved and most sadly-missed postwar icons of ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: The Outtakes
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, November 1995
Behind every great Beatles track is a version not quite so good. But not necessarily less interesting... Jon Savage listens to the outtakes. ...
Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson And Van Dyke Parks: Orange Crate Art
Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, December 1995
BH: Was it hard getting Brian involved in the making of Orange Crate Art? ...
Neil Young: I Build Something Up, I Tear It Right Down: Neil Young at 50
Interview by Nick Kent, MOJO, December 1995
"IN THE FIELD OF opportunity/it's ploughing time again" crooned Neil Young back in the late 70s. Yet at no time have those eager sentiments seemed ...
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, December 1995
'Shake Your Moneymaker'From Fleetwood Mac LP 1968 (Blue Horizon) MY INEPTNESS TO do separate things at speed became my style of drumming. When it got ...
Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie: David Bowie/ Nine Inch Nails: Meadowlands Arena, New Jersey
Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1995
SOMEWHERE, ROUGHLY TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY through the non-linear-Gothic-drama-hyper-cycle-murder-mystery known as David Bowie's Outside, the seasoned pro lost his audience. What began with the ...
Cypress Hill: III – Temple Of Boom
Review by David Toop, MOJO, December 1995
HIP HOP innovations are so swiftly assimilated and processed into cliché that their initial impact can become lost in foggy video memories of oversized hats, ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Stripped
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1995
GOT LIVE If You Want It... ...so bragged The Rolling Stones of their first live album, recorded at the ...
Small Faces, The: Small Faces: The Immediate Years (Charly)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 1995
MOD, SCHMOD: THE SMALL FACES WERE SO MUCH more. For a start they were a great band for kids. I should know, I was one. ...
Julian Cope: Krautrocksampler: One Head’s Guide To The Great Kosmiche Musik - 1968 Onwards
Review by Simon Reynolds, MOJO, December 1995
Since it deals with that most fetishised of genres, Krautrocksampler is appropriately enough an intensely fetishisable object. Purportedly the first of a whole line of ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, December 1995
ADORE OR despise Billy Corgan's unmistakable musical shitstorm of hubris and angst – and he is a walking ammunition stockpile for both positions – it ...
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, December 1995
Hit compilations from ‘80s-into-’90s soul megastars. ...
Arthur Alexander: No Direction Home
Retrospective by Richard Younger, MOJO, December 1995
The Beatles, Stones and Dylan covered his songs. As a singer he was rated alongside Otis and Orbison. So whatever happened to Arthur Alexander? ...
Roxy Music: They Came From Planet Bacofoil
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, December 1995
Brought together by musical differences, they looked into the future — and it was dressed to kill. They were Roxy Music, and this is the ...
Subway Sect, The: Leaders Of The Opposition
Review and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 1995
Subway Sect: We Oppose All Rock & Roll (Overground)Jon Savage listens to Subway Sect's brief recorded legacy, and talks to frontman Vic Godard. ...
Review and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 1995
Far out, too much: people still sneer at The Grateful Dead, using these phrases as a kind of sardonic shorthand to dismiss high-‘60s ideals. But ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Ghost Of Tom Joad
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 1995
SPRINGSTEEN'S GOT HIS BOTTLE back. After the diverse dissatisfactions of Human Touch, Lucky Town, the point-defeating In Concert: MTV Plugged, and the unnecessary Greatest Hits, ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
Set List: Everything’s Fine Right Now/ Lonely Exile/ Tom & Alexei/ Scotland Yet/ Red Hair/ October Song-Maya/ Favourite Sins/ Killing The Dragon/ Fathers/ Love Letter ...
Willie Nelson: The Barbican, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
HE STEPS out onstage to a standing ovation and his grizzled, beautifully-ruined face breaks into that huge grin. For a moment the spindly bloke looks ...
Prince: The Best of the Patchy Years
Guide by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
IN MANY WAYS the ultimate ‘80s self-made man, Prince spent the decade inventing and reinventing himself. The scope of the man’s ambition was mindboggling; the ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1996
Donovan’s comeback album, produced by bearded eccentric Rick Rubin, owner of American Records and the man behind The Beastie Boys, Slayer and Johnny Cash’s acclaimed ...
David Sylvian: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1996
ACOUSTIC GUITAR, DHOTI, sensible shoes. Who'd have thought it, back in the techno tailor's dummy days of lipstick, peroxide and synthesizers? ...
Bruce Springsteen: Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, January 1996
"I KNOW THIS IS LA," ANNOUNCED BRUCE Springsteen at the start of his concert, "so I hope I don't have to go out there and ...
Lindisfarne, Alan Hull: Alan Hull 1945-1995
Obituary by Chris Ingham, MOJO, January 1996
WHEN I WAS 15 – AND FIVE YEARS AN EX-PAT GEORDIE – MY contemporaries idolised Strummer and Weller. I wanted to be like Alan Hull. ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Anthology 1
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, January 1996
ANTHOLOGY IS RIGHT. HERE IS A SEQUENCE of snap shots that just so happen to have been taken in the six years from 1958's toddling ...
Roxy Music: The Thrill Of It All (Virgin)
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, January 1996
THERE WERE GROUPS OTHER THAN THE Beatles back long ago, and one of them was Roxy Music. Their awkward early steps in 1972 were almost ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Playback (MCA)
Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, January 1996
Ben Edmonds rewinds 20 years of Tom Petty ...
Teenage Fanclub: The Forum, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1996
ONE HESITATES TO USE the word "heartwarming" about the endurance of the unassuming Scotsmen who go by the name of Teenage Fanclub, but at a ...
Marianne Faithfull: Berliner Ensemble, Berlin
Live Review by Dave Rimmer, MOJO, February 1996
THE SET IS SIMPLE: black curtain, grand piano, chair and table, snifter of brandy and pack of Marlboro Lights. She’s nervous stepping on to it, ...
Mink DeVille, Willy DeVille: Willy De Ville: Loup Garou
Review by Rob Steen, MOJO, February 1996
IF YOU'RE GOING TO BE A one-hit wonder, you might as well serve up a concoction as delicious as ‘Spanish Stroll’: Lou Reed goes finger-poppin' ...
Joe Cocker: The Long Voyage Home
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1996
MARTIN KEELEY'S front cover photo for Joe Cocker's first album – named, of course, for his transformative cover of ‘With A Little Help From My ...
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, February 1996
COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH are doomed to be best remembered for that old crowd-pleaser they churned out at Woodstock in August, 1969. No matter ...
Lou Reed, Velvet Underground: A Dark Prince at Twilight: Lou Reed
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1996
THE DAY DOES not begin auspiciously. The first flakes of a snowstorm descend as I open the curtains in my hotel room, adding yet another ...
Curtis Mayfield: People Get Ready!
Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, March 1996
THE LAST FIVE YEARS HAVE SEEN THE BOX-setting of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Bob Marley and a fair few other giants of black ...
Frank Zappa: The Lost Episodes
Review by Dave Rimmer, MOJO, March 1996
DESCRIBED BY UTILITY Muffin Kitchen engineer Spencer Chrislu as a "sort of stealth project", this excellent little album of studio leftovers was put together by ...
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, March 1996
CLOSE TO a quarter-century after his debut, Jackson Browne still can't settle down. His love life might not bother him the way it once did ...
Burt Bacharach: "Do you know the Way to Monterey? Santa Fe? Whitley Bay?"
Retrospective and Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, March 1996
Thankfully, Messrs Bacharach and David got there in the end, polishing yet another pop gem and putting an unremarkable California city on the map forever. ...
Carpenters, The: Interview with Richard Carpenter
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 1996
For the grisly details of pill addiction, anorexia nervosa and blue velvet jackets, try Ray Coleman's book. Today, Richard Carpenter talks to Chris Ingham about ...
Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits: Mark Knopfler
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 1996
"I’m always conscious of... how hard life is for a lot of people," says Mark Knopfler. The eight-bar rest midsentence is characteristic. Likewise, the right ...
Will Oldham, Palace Music: Will Oldham's Palace
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1996
THERE IS A STRANGE subcurrent in the American rock music of the mid-'90s: a subcurrent of lo-fi, willfully inept, not-quite-country rock that stretches from the ...
Stereolab, High Llamas, The: The High Llamas: Hawaii; Stereolab: Emperor Tomato Ketchup
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1996
UPON OBSERVING A SMALL dog walking on its hind legs, Doctor Johnson famously noted that it was less remarkable how well the cur in question ...
Will Oldham's Palace: Arise Therefore
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1996
THERE IS A strange subcurrent in American rock music of the '90s: a subcurrent of lo-fi, willfully inept, not-quite-country rock that stretches from the disbanded ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 1996
Sting cannot be escaped. He's on TV (a commercial for Rover cars) in a film (The Grotesque), on two movie soundtracks (Leaving Las Vegas and ...
Cocteau Twins: Milk And Kisses (Fontana)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1996
AN UNFORGIVABLE THING happened in 1994. The Cocteau Twins released arguably their finest album to date, Four Calendar Cafe, only to have it roundly ignored ...
k.d. lang: National Indoor Arena, Birmingham
Live Review by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 1996
BIG-BONED BOTTICELLI GIRL K.D. LANG IS LYING ON the floor. Knees up to her chest, hands clasped round the back of her head, she rocks ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 1996
IN THE catering trailer, the tables are jammed with people so disparate it’s hard to believe they belong to the same species. The ones wearing ...
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1996
ON A STARRY SUMMER NIGHT at Bearsville Studios, New York, the four members of Phish are bracing themselves for the inevitable Grateful Dead question. You ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 1996
BACK IN THE EARLY '60s, in their Golden Eagle residency days, The Spencer Davis Group played the whole gamut of American R&B from John Lee ...
J.J. Cale: Guitar Man (Virgin/Delabel)
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1996
THERE'S SOMETHING IMMENSELY comforting about Cale's stubbly resistance to musical fashions, and that warmth spreads easily through this album, which has the same intimate feel, ...
Byrds, The: The Byrds: Mr Tambourine Man, Turn! Turn! Turn!, Fifth Dimension, Younger Than Yesterday
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1996
ROCK HISTORY IS STRIATED BY THE INFLUENCE OF The Byrds. Theirs is one of the great stylistic lineages, forever shadowing those of the Fabs and ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 1996
PACKAGING HAS RARELY had more to say about the content of an album. Older's booklet interleaves lyrics with full-page shots of George Michael frowning, hanging ...
Pete Townshend: Cooltalkingsmoothtalkingstraightsmokingfirestoking (Atlantic)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, June 1996
DEAR DEAR PETE, ROCK'S leading luvvie: it's been so temptingly easy to take the piss out of him for his earnestness, his artistic ambition and ...
Blind Faith: Born Under A Bad Sign
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, July 1996
IN THE EVENING COOL OF JUNE 6, 1969, almost 7,000 people made their way to Hyde Park, where they slept under stars to be sure ...
Ocean Colour Scene: Camden Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1996
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE have got booking the supports sussed. Liverpudlian veterans The Real People turn in a tuneful set. Good call. The DJ gets the ...
Who, The: The Who: Betrayed by Rock'n'Roll
Comment by Dave Marsh, MOJO, July 1996
Fan and friend Dave Marsh celebrates Pete Townshend's most puzzling work, Quadrophenia, written in an era full of possibilities which,"ended badly". Could it be that ...
Metallica: The Alternative Metallica
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1996
THEY MAKE THE ODDEST OF rock couples, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Watching them at work in Manhattan’s Right Track Studios, it’s hard to imagine ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 1996
There's nothing more mild-mannered than a mild-mannered Canadian. But rub one up the wrong way and the consequences can be dramatic. And profitable. Just ask ...
Blue Nile, The: Above It All: The Blue Nile
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1996
When life dishes it out, Paul Buchanan and his group The Blue Nile pack a bag, settle somewhere new and, every half-decade or so, make ...
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, July 1996
SONGS ABOUT buying armfuls of Kit-Kat from the all-night garage; songs about lying drunk in the grass and seeing a face in the stars ("He's ...
Rolling Stones, The, Charlie Watts: Ten Questions for Charlie Watts
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, July 1996
Long Ago And Far Away, standards performed by jazz quintet, string orchestra and vocalist, sounds like a continuation of your last album, Warm And Tender. ...
Focus, Jan Akkerman: Phone Home: Jan Akkerman
Interview by Colin Harper, MOJO, July 1996
"AFTER FOCUS I MADE a record called Eli and toured Britain. The record was a success but the tour was a disaster. I did one ...
Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Broken Arrow
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, July 1996
WELL, AT LEAST IT'S NOT THE THREATENED LIVE souvenir of Neil's time with Pearl Jam, which comes out later this year; and mercy of mercies, ...
Johnny Guitar Watson: Johnny "Guitar" Watson
Retrospective by Paul Trynka, MOJO, July 1996
NOVEMBER 1995: Johnny "Guitar" Watson Is Halfway through a slick set at Oakland's Henry Kaiser Arena. He's wearing a luminously glossy white suit, trademark jewelled ...
Isley Brothers, The: It Don't Mean A Thing...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, July 1996
...if it ain't got that swingbeat, say The Isley Brothers, who have updated their sound with producers R. Kelly and Keith Sweat. Andy Gill asks ...
Al Green, Ann Peebles, Willie Mitchell: Various Artists: Royal Memphis Soul – Hi Records
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1996
When Muscle Shoals went flabby and Stax couldn't pay their taxes, Hi Records took up the soul baton. Barney Hoskyns says hello to a collection ...
Sex Pistols, The: The Sex Pistols and Friends: Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, August 1996
IS THERE ANYTHING WHICH THE RECONSTITUTED Sex Pistols – freeze-dried, just add money – could possibly have done at their "comeback" show which would have ...
Patti Smith: The Rebel: Patti Smith
Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, August 1996
To R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, she is "one of the premier artists of my lifetime – I’ve blindly stolen from her for years." To Bob Dylan, ...
ZZ Top: Ten Questions For ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, August 1996
Antenna and the new album Rhythmeen: returns to form for ZZ Top? ...
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, August 1996
BT: Listening to your debut album Fuzzy Logic, there seems to be a hint of British '60s psychedelic legends Dantalion's Chariot about it. ...
Serge Gainsbourg: Old Cabbage Head Is Back: Serge Gainsbourg
Retrospective by Paul Gorman, MOJO, August 1996
"I WOULD LIKE to fuck 'er." With these six words, slurred in the heaviest of French accents, Serge Gainsbourg sealed his reputation as the scourge ...
Electronic: Raise the Pressure
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1996
FIVE YEARS after cementing their partnership as the coolest Mancunians on the planet, Messrs Marr and Sumner return with a dreadfully disappointing album. Raise The ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes: Three Snakes and One Charm
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 1996
The band's fourth album, recorded over a two-month period in a house in Atlanta. Jack Puig co-produces once again. ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, August 1996
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: GROINHEAD GOES TO FLORIDA. A sort of musical honeymoon, one presumes: flushed with post-nuptial bliss after snatching mighty Mayte, the abdominal show-woman ...
Brian Wilson: The Story of Sweet Insanity
Retrospective by Bill Holdship, MOJO, September 1996
SOMEHOW – PRIMARILY BECAUSE I took the trouble to talk to Brian and his then ever-present psychotherapist-turned-manager and collaborator, Eugene Landy at a star-studded Hollywood ...
Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett: The Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett
Retrospective by Cliff Jones, MOJO, September 1996
He was Pink Floyd’s astral voyager who went too far, the star-child of psychedelia who never returned from his journey to inner space. Nearly 30 ...
Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac: The Shape I'm In: Peter Green
Profile by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 1996
IT'S MID-WINTER 1968. The five members of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac are huddled together, holding hands on the floor of the Gorham Hotel on West ...
Animals, The: Obituary: Chas Chandler
Obituary by Keith Altham, MOJO, September 1996
Eric Burdon had the temerity to scribble the new loggia he’d designed for the Animals all over my virginal blotter. Bass player Chas caught my ...
George Clinton: The Brother From Another Planet
Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, September 1996
From the ancient civilization of Doo Wop he came, stopping off via Cosmic Soul and the Acid Rock asteroid to found the P-Funk Galaxy, his ...
Lemonheads, The, Evan Dando: Evan Dando and the Pop Walkabout
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1996
IN DON DeLillo’s 1973 novel Great Jones Street, a rock star named Bucky Wunderlick decides to quit his band and disappear from the music industry. ...
Mose Allison: A Chat with Mose Allison
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, September 1996
Where do you think your vocal style come from? ...
Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Phoenix Festival, Long Marston, Stratford-upon-Avon
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 1996
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER field. Phoenix smells of tent-rubber and scorching skin, the crowd red and sweating like vacuum-packed beetroot. They’ve survived the eight-hour, 12-mail tailbacks. ...
Radiohead: T In The Park, Strathclyde
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 1996
WHOEVER PUT "great" and "outdoors" in the same sentence was not a rock fan. Rock needs four walls and a roof. In the case of ...
Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, September 1996
THE BEST INTRODUCTION TO Sebadoh comes in the form of an 11 minute cut-and-paste manifesto, tacked – without the benefit of a title – onto ...
Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac: "I'm Peter Green"
Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, September 1996
OUTSIDE IT'S RAINING, THE KIND OF slick, greasy rain you only get in cities. The atmosphere is oppressive. Inside the Brewer's Inn, Wandsworth – a ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Songs And Music From The Motion Picture She's The One
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1996
TOM PETTY WAS BORN to be a classic runner. The only question with each new release is whether he's out for a canter or the ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1996
Asked to provide one song for a film soundtrack, Tom Petty rather overshot the brief and wound up laying down an album’s worth. ...
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 1996
ARGUABLY the most intense and most intensely English musical experience to have arisen from the brief heyday of the new wave that succeeded punk, XTC ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
EVERY FEW YEARS AN ALBUM IS MADE IN LOS Angeles of such wistful sunniness that it sets up shop on the radio for months on ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: "We're a damn good little band"
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
On the eve of the release of Anthology 3, Paul McCartney casts his mind back to The Beatles' glorious sunset. ...
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 1996
THE SONG WAS CALLED 'Becoming X'. We gave it a turn on the office stereo, not expecting much. But, about a minute into the dark, ...
Beck: Ogden Street Concert Hall, Buffalo, NY
Live Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, October 1996
"Who are you?" a voice asks Beck not long into the goofball savant’s utterly delightful new album O-de-lay. "I’m the Enchanting Wizard of Rhythm," he ...
Lemonheads, The, Evan Dando: Evan Dando: The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1996
DRIVING THROUGH the sheeting rain from the miniature airport that serves Martha’s Vineyard, the guy at the wheel informs me that we’re heading towards the ...
Lauryn Hill, Fugees, The: Fugees: Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, October 1996
COOL ALWAYS HAS CONTEXT. Tonight that context is the growing awareness that hip hop and black American music in general have embraced a new set ...
Cream, Jimi Hendrix: Jimi Hendrix And Cream
Report and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, October 1996
Eric Clapton, arms hanging limp at his side, stared in disbelief at the outlandishly garbed guitarslinger who had just joined the Cream for an impromptu ...
Mott The Hoople, Ian Hunter: The Gentleman Of The Road
Review and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, October 1996
Ian Hunter: Diary Of A Rock And Roll Star ...
Review and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
JUST WHEN THE TOP WERE sounding like they'd run out of juice a mere 26 years into their career, they pull out a plum. Could ...
Gil Evans, Miles Davis: Miles Davis and Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings
Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, October 1996
THEIR CURIOUS YET inspired partnership resulted in music of rare beauty. Ben Edmonds salutes a landmark box set that fully captures the genius of Miles ...
Live Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, November 1996
"I WANNA TELL Y’ALL SOMETHING," Carlene Carter notifies the young country audience that’s braved an outdoor venue on an unseasonably cold and wet September evening. ...
Pearl Jam: Downing Stadium, Randalls Island, New York
Live Review by Edward Helmore, MOJO, November 1996
With last year’s histrionic battles with Ticket-master, Eddie Vedder’s exhaustion and the loss of a drummer now all behind them, Pearl Jam embarked on a ...
Steely Dan: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 1996
THEY QUIT TOURING IN '74; broke up in '80. Now the arch hipster auteurs of literate, cynical, smart-ass rock jazz – the creators of some ...
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, November 1996
IT'S A LAZY MONDAY NIGHT IN LOS ANGELES, AND A few blocks east of Beverly Hills an inconspicuous sign adorns a shadowy building, quietly proclaiming ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Anthology 3
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 1996
"WHAT DO YOU THINK OF ALL THAT?" ENQUIRES PAUL McCartney after half a dozen silly-voice choruses of ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’. ...
Joni Mitchell: Both Sides Now: Joni Mitchell's Hits and Misses
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1996
* First-ever attempt to compile a "best of" the former Roberta Joan Anderson.* Simultaneously released albums of "hits" - songs successful either for Mitchell or ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1996
"WHEN I WAS VERY SMALL," says Holly Palmer, "my dad used to say, 'Holly, you're buzzing'. There'd be these funny noises coming from my mouth. ...
Marshall Crenshaw, Amy Rigby: Marshall Crenshaw/Amy Rigby: Park West, Albany, NY
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1996
ON THE first date of an East Coast mini-tour, Marshall Crenshaw and Amy Rigby are playing things semi-safe: Park West is a club sandwiched between ...
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1996
"WHAT IS Soul?" sang Ben E. King in 1967, a year that began with Aretha Franklin’s first Atlantic session and ended with the death of ...
Smashing Pumpkins: The Smashing Pumpkins: American Gothic
Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, December 1996
The music of the Smashing Pumpkins has brought the dark night of the soul to the wide open spaces of America’s arenas and radio waves. ...
Manic Street Preachers: More!!
Profile and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, December 1996
Cambridge Corn Exchange, October 11, 1996 ...
Kula Shaker: The Kilburn National, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1996
JUST WHEN we’d accepted that Camden Town was the new Jerusalem and Noel and Liam God’s chosen, just when we declared we were glad to ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: New Daisy Theater, Memphis
Live Review by Robert Gordon, MOJO, December 1996
JERRY LEE LEWIS turned 61 and his seventh wife, Kerrie, threw him a party on Beale Street in his adopted hometown of Memphis. But Beale ...
Fugs, The, Ed Sanders: Ed Sanders and the Fugs
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1996
Lester Bangs called The Fugs "the first truly underground band in America". 30 years later, their leader is waging war against Newt Gingrich... ...
Johnny Cash: A Law Unto Himself
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1996
WE'RE PASSING through Andover, Kansas, scene of one of the worst tornadoes in American history: a monstrous twister that levelled the little town and took ...
Lightning Seeds, The: The Lightning Seeds: Dizzy Heights
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, December 1996
IF MORE OF THE SAME SOUNDS insulting, think in terms of more of the same but better, because that's essentially what Ian Broudie delivers with ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1996
Second album by Deep Purple’s mark II line-up of Ian Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Roger Glover and Ian Paice, rereleased on its 25th anniversary. ...
J.J. Cale: J.J.Cale: Q&A on Guitar Man
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, Spring 1996
MOJO: Does making albums get harder or easier with time? ...
Esquivel, Jeff Buckley: Conference Call: Jeff Buckley interviews Esquivel
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, Summer 1996
Take a ride on the mood music elevator as MOJO’s favourite young lion Jeff Buckley enjoys a transcontinental chinwag with space-age septuagenarian Esquivel. ...
Guide by John McCready, MOJO, 1997
UNLIKE THE Hoover, a similarly undisputed brand leader which describes any vacuum cleaner as all vacuum cleaners do the same thing, all synthesizers are, over ...
John Coltrane: Honk If You Love Jesus! The Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church
Report by James Maycock, MOJO, 1997
EVERY TUESDAY afternoon, Sister Deborah spreads Coltrane consciousness through the San Francisco airwaves. ...
Review and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, 1997
Soft Machine and Matching Mole legend makes triumphant return. Sterling work from all-star supporting cast Paul Weller, Brian Eno, Evan Parker, Annie Whitehead and Phil ...
Robert Gordon, Danny Gatton: Robert Gordon with Danny Gatton: The Humbler (NRG)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, 1997
Designer rockabilly ignited live by squat suicidal Telecaster virtuoso ...
Sonny Rollins: Ten Questions for Sonny Rollins
Interview by Richard Cook, MOJO, January 1997
On Milestones, Rolling Stones and Maintaining Mystique ...
Red Snapper: Mojo Rising: Red Snapper
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, January 1997
IT COULD HAVE gone so wrong. A trio of thirtysomething musos with jazz/hip-hop tendencies and chops to spare, take to jamming in Hammersmith and decide ...
Doors, The: The Doors: Absolutely Live (Elektra)
Review and Interview by Dave DiMartino, Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, January 1997
THOUGH IT EMERGED to mixed reviews in July 1970 – not least from the band, who thought the set middling – Absolutely Live is an ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1997
DETACH YOURSELF for a moment, and this here is a pretty rum scene. ...
? and the Mysterians: Phone Home: ? and the Mysterians
Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, February 1997
"WHOA! IT'S WILD that you called today. Little Frank, the original organist in The Mysterians, has just rejoined the band. He was down in Texas ...
Profile by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1997
"I am not a woman, I am not a man/I am something that you’ll never understand..." ...
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1997
AFTER A great deal of wandering throughout the 40 years of her life - from smalltown South Dakota to Ontario to San Francisco to New ...
Fairport Convention: Now Be Thankful...
Overview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 1997
…for 30 years of Fairport Convention. Jim Irvin gets a guided tour through their scrapbook of joy, tears, beers, jigs, reels and panties. ...
Obituary by Robert Gordon, MOJO, March 1997
AT TOWNES VAN ZANDT’S FUNERAL, HIS longtime friend and fellow songwriter Guy Clark stepped to the microphone and, adjusting a guitar around his neck, said, ...
Obituary by Max Bell, MOJO, March 1997
RANDY CALIFORNIA, THE GUITARIST AND songwriter of West Coast group Spirit, drowned after swimming off the Hawaiian island of Molokai on January 2. ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco
Live Review by Joel Selvin, MOJO, March 1997
AFTER MORE THAN FIVE YEARS OF THE IMMENSE SUCCESS THAT followed the popular breakthrough of Full Moon Fever, Tom Petty wondered what to do. His ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1997
ON A WARM January afternoon of the kind that’s almost unique to Los Angeles, an enormous lime-green 1969 Chevrolet pickup is lumbering noisily up a ...
Monkees, The: The Monkees: What Goes On?
Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, March 1997
Here they come. Walking down the street. Spouting more long words than they ever did on TV. Tom Hibbert meets The Monkees, re-formed and playing ...
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, March 1997
Every month we navigate the highwater marks, rapids and stagnant ponds of a prolific artist’s CD output, so you don’t have to. We begin with... ...
Laura Nyro: Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best Of Laura Nyro
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, March 1997
Most comprehensive Nyro compilation to date, features extensive booklet with her own notes and unseen photographs – not to mention guest appearances over the years ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1997
Is jungle exploration the right career move for a 50-year-old pop star who plans to float himself on the Stock Market this year? ...
Ben Folds Five: Whatever and Ever Amen (Sony)
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, March 1997
Piano/bass/drums trio whose 'Underground' was a summer Top 40 hit. This is their second album, their first for Sony. They are, wouldn’t you know, big ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 1997
Fifth album in six years; as ever a Stephen Street production. Change of ’direction’ hears Blur muss up their sound and back-pedal into the future. ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, March 1997
U2 have a fine sense of event and how to tweak it. Preceded by advance publicity suggesting more than enough stylistic innovation to maintain the ...
Velvet Underground: Time Machine: Velvet Underground
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, March 1997
Launched largely from a platform provided by their association with the decade’s most celebrated artist, Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground without Nico had become New ...
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
WITH THEIR SECOND album, Being There, already being hailed as the record of the year, and flattering, if fanciful, comparisons to such as Exile On ...
Faust: Deconstructing the nuts, bolts and girders of rock - or simply having a smashing time?
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
A DAY OR TWO after their Queen Elizabeth Hall concert, my ears are still ringing when I go to interview Jean-Hervé Peron, one of the ...
Ray Davies, Kinks, The: Ten Questions for Ray Davies
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 1997
What's happening in Kink land? ...
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S LOOKING GOOD. Gary's got his hands down inside the front of his trousers and Dom's rolling a skinny little one on the table. These ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes: The Garage, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1997
CHRIS ROBINSON HAS perfected the skinny, rollin'-eyed, raggedy Jesus look you don't see outside of by-pass protests and early '70s festival documentaries. ...
Phish: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Max Bell, MOJO, April 1997
BECAUSE OF THEIR FOLLOWING, THE FACT that they laugh in the face of set-lists and encourage bootlegging, these Burlington blues boys are often compared to ...
Mighty Diamonds, Twinkle Brothers, The: The Mighty Diamonds/The Twinkle Brothers: The Forum, London
Live Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S A RARE THING THESE DAYS THAT Ralston Grant, the guitar-playing half of The Twinkle Brothers, leaves Jamaica, and for the last decade or so ...
Pink Floyd: Alexandra Palace 1967: Syd Barrett Wasn’t Feeling At All Well...
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, MOJO, April 1997
He was seeing things that others only eyed in kaleidoscopes. But he was aware that Roger Waters was dragging him on-stage; dawn was breaking and ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Chilly symphonies and misty synth-scapes: the Gothic revival starts here ...
Supremes, The: Mary Wilson on The Supremes
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, April 1997
"ONE DAY IN mid-April we were all summoned to berry’s home on Outer Drive," remembers Mary Wilson of The Supremes. "As I drove there, I ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S SOMETIME IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER OF 1973-4, and Faust are playing Sheffield City Hall. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
AT ONE TIME, it seemed like everyone in Germany was in Amon Duul. ...
Can: Art Terrorism! Sensory Derangement! Holistic Vomiting! Available Weekends…
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
CAN ALWAYS added to more than the sum of their experience and influences. When the group made the seminal Monster Movie in 1968, three of ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Do the men play the machines? Or the machines play the men? How four humanoids with one vision revolutionised pop. ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1997
THE SOUND IS delicate and strange: the same weirdo innocence as the saucer-eyed little girl on the sleeve — and the melodies mostly downbeat. But ...
Review by Tony Russell, MOJO, April 1997
CHICAGO IN THE FIRST DECADE after World War II spawned record labels like a salmon on fertility drugs. Many of them dealt with blues, some ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
The Byrds fall out, run off and get back to the country. The second batch of remastered reissues in the Legacy series. Each features extra ...
Chemical Brothers, The: The Chemical Brothers: Dig Your Own Hole
Review and Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, April 1997
AT ABOUT 1.15 ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 7, 1966, pop music went and changed forever. The Beatles had just completed the first day's work ...
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 1997
All the single hits (1970-1986) and ‘Une Nuit A Paris’ from Manchester's art-pop maestros, famously named after the average volume of the male ejaculation. Plus ...
Aretha Franklin: Time Machine: Aretha Franklin
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, May 1997
The most crucial moment in Aretha Franklin's career ...
Manic Street Preachers: NYNEX, Manchester
Live Review by John McCready, MOJO, May 1997
FOR A group who have long flirted with the traditional tricks of "rawk", this is really a hell of a risk. The potential for misunderstanding ...
Fountains of Wayne: The Fountains of Wayne: Mojo Rising
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1997
CHRIS COLLINGWOOD and Adam Schlesinger have waited a long time to see their pure-pop/power-pop dreams realised. The duo were penning addictively hummable songs as long ...
Willie Nelson: How To Buy Willie Nelson
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, May 1997
TWO THINGS. Willie Nelson is not a country singer but a singer who just happens to fit neatly in the country section for those of ...
P.J. Proby: That's Torn It! The Story of P.J. Proby
Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, May 1997
P J. PROBY, SURVIVOR OF 30 YEARS OF fame, purgatory, and sporadic redemption, is holding court on one of his favourite subjects. "From Graceland to ...
Steve Winwood, Traffic: Steve Winwood
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, May 1997
IT WAS NOT UNTIL 1993, 30 years after he first heard Ray Charles sing, that Steve Winwood met his lifelong idol. Winwood happened to be ...
Supergrass: In It For The Money (Parlophone)
Review and Interview by Max Bell, MOJO, May 1997
IT SEEMS UNLIKELY THAT SUPERGRASS will ever scale the wails of hype built around those British bands whose media inflated self-importance exceeds their artistic merit. ...
Prefab Sprout: Andromeda Heights
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, May 1997
ONCE, WHILE LISTENING To Prefab Sprout's Protest Songs, wide-eyed in admiration at the musical facility, the poetic imagination, the sheer individuality of it all, my ...
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1997
KEITH RICHARDS says he’d never thought of making a solo album until Mick Jagger announced that he didn’t want to tour to promote the Rolling ...
Psychedelia: The 100 Greatest Classics
Guide by Jon Savage, MOJO, June 1997
Back by public demand, and even more mind-expanding, Jon Savage takes a trip through psychedelia’s golden years to compile the ultimate six-hour flashback. ...
Retrospective by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, June 1997
Ben Edmonds finds out what happened when acid hit blue-collar America. WHEN POET JOHN SINCLAIR was released from the Detroit House of Correction in August ...
Retrospective by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, June 1997
IT COULD BE SAID THAT THE POSTER ART WAS THE best thing that ever happened to psychedelic music. As concert posters they didn’t just advertise ...
Beautiful South, The: The Beautiful South: The Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 1997
PLAINLY NOT RUGGED T-SHIRT-IN-A-SNOW-storm northerners, The Beautiful South's vocal frontline take to the stage for their second night at the RAH in a winter collection ...
Obituary by Miles, MOJO, June 1997
Allen Ginsberg and I were friends for over 30 years, and even though I am his ‘official’ biographer, it is hard to sum up so ...
Obituary by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 1997
LAURA NYRO DIED OF OVARIAN CANCER, AT HOME IN Danbury, Connecticut, on April 8. Of all the revered ‘60s singer-songwriters, she was the one whose ...
The Summer of Love's Counterculture Butterflies
Overview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1997
Who were they? Where are they now? ...
Love Story: Alone Again, or Arthur Lee
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1997
HIGH UP in Laurel Canyon, with all of Los Angeles spread out around him, Arthur Lee would sit and stare and contemplate death - "sitting ...
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, June 1997
Oh what larks they had. Psychedelic poesy with a May Ball beat. Jolly Japes with Jimi Hendrix. Frolics with the Floyd. Soft Machine: a very ...
ABBA: Welcome to the Palindrome
Review by Nick Hornby, MOJO, June 1997
Reissues: Their entire oeuvre freshly silvered, remastered and mid-priced. RING RING/ WATERLOO/ ABBA/ ARRIVAL/ THE ALBUM/ VOULEZ VOUS/ SUPER TROOPER/ THE VISITORS/ ABBA LIVE ...
Skip Spence : Alexander 'Skip' Spence: Oar (Columbia US)
Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, June 1997
Tracks: Little Hands/Cripple Creek/Diana/Margaret-Tiger Rug/Weighted Down/War In Peace/Broken Heart/All Come To Meet Her/Books Of Moses/Dixie Peach Promenade/Lawrence Of Euphoria/Grey/Afro ...
Jimi Hendrix: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun/Are You Experienced?/Electric Ladyland
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, June 1997
HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE? WE CERTAINLY HAVE. In 1993, the dilapidated Hendrix CD catalogue was overhauled by Alan Douglas, then artistic director of the ...
Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 1997
THE CULMINATION OF A SEVEN YEAR mission to empty his crowded mind onto tape, Ladies And Gentlemen...is Jason Pierce's clamorous meisterwerk. A record that's splendidly ...
Review and Interview by Richard Cook, MOJO, June 1997
Head boy's follow-up to 1994's David Byrne finds him working with a variety of producers, including DJ Hahn Rowe, The Black Cat Orchestra and Morcheeba. ...
Peter Green: Still got the Greens…
Review and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, June 1997
The Peter Green Splinter Group: Splinter Group Giant step back to the world for the best of the '60s Britbluesers.CSM meets Peter Green and ...
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, June 1997
According to the man himself, Paul can bash out a song in the time it takes Linda to whip up a soyasome supper. But is ...
Radiohead: Zeleste Club, Barcelona
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1997
FOR THE EUROPEAN launch of their brilliant but peculiar third LP, OK Computer, Radiohead have opted to take it reasonably easy, hang out in one ...
Teenage Fanclub: Sporty, Scary, Posh & Ginger
Report and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1997
Thursday, May 30, 1996 ...
Kula Shaker, Aerosmith: Aerosmith and Kula Shaker On The Road
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, July 1997
The raddled and the fresh-faced. The stellar and the starry-eyed. The seen-it-all and the wannabes. Perhaps, harsh to say, the past and the future. It ...
Aretha Franklin: How to Buy Aretha Franklin
Discography by Fred Dellar, MOJO, July 1997
DURING 1956, a 14-year-old Aretha, daughter of gospel superstar the Reverend C.L. Franklin, sang and played piano before an enthusiastic congregation at her father's new ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1997
ONCE UPON a time, Papas Fritas were just another dweebish lo-fi band from Massachusetts, growing up in the shadows of Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr.. But ...
Crazy Horse, Neil Young: Crazy Horse: Ralph, Billy, Poncho... and Neil
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 1997
THERE'S A SCENE in Year Of The Horse, looks like one of those scenic theme park rides, where Neil Young and crewperson are sitting talking ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 1997
Neil Young plus electricity plus us, the ticket-holders. It's been a volatile but vital combination for over three decades. On the eve of the great ...
Going Down Memory Lane with Jenny Fabian
Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, July 1997
BEFORE JENNY FABIAN, groupies hardly existed...well, they probably did, but the general public, ie Mr and Mrs Beswick of Pursey, knew nothing about them (even ...
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, July 1997
Thom Yorke tells Jim Irvin how OK Computer was done. ...
Neil Young: The Year Of The Horse
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1997
2-CD, 13-track live document of last year's Broken Arrow tour, recorded mainly in America but featuring tracks from Berlin, Toronto…and downtown Saskatchewan. ...
Review by Nick Kent, MOJO, July 1997
A year in the making, the follow-up to their multi-poll-topping classic, The Bends. ...
Ron Sexsmith: Other Songs (Interscope)
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Mat Snow, MOJO, July 1997
Follow-up to 1995's self-titled debut, again produced by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake. ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, July 1997
CONTINUING THE HIGH STANDARDS of Perfectly Good Guitar and Walk On, but with a lighter heart and a jauntier spring to its step, Little Head ...
Roger McGuinn: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 1997
A BLACK EXECUTIVE chair sits in the middle of an empty stage in a in a puddle of swirling, blobby, cod-psychedelic lights. It’s as if ...
Spiritualized: The Astoria, London
Live Review by Paul Trynka, MOJO, August 1997
SPIRITUALIZED'S SIMPLE, sublime Ladies & Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space has gained untold credibility by being nominated 'this year's drugs album' – a shorthand ...
Box Tops, The: The Box Tops: House Of Blues, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Don Waller, MOJO, August 1997
ADDING YET another layer of cracked lustre to lead singer Alex Chilton's legendary cult-star, The Box Tops popped on-stage, pumping out a pluperfect-for-frat-parties version of ...
Ben Harper: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 1997
THERE'S SOMETHING going on here. Before he's even played a note, Ben Harper is treated by a jam-packed house to a standing ovation of Messianic ...
Jeff Buckley: "It's Never Over"
Obituary by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 1997
JUST BEFORE 9PM ON THE EVENING of Thursday, May 29, Jeff Buckley and his friend Keith Foti realised they were lost. ...
Isley Brothers, The: The Isley Brothers Reissues
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 1997
Isley; Get Into Something; Givin' It Back; Brother, Brother, BrotherFour long-lost albums, each one worth £20 or more on vinyl. Originally on the Isleys' own ...
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 1997
A considerable portion of the German experimentalists’ output re-released on CD and limited issue vinyl: 24 albums spanning 1968-1994, including original issues, anthologies, compilations, and ...
Pink Floyd: David Gilmour Could Tell His Friends Were Having Problems…
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, August 1997
GILMOUR, GUITARIST for the locally popular Cambridge band Joker's Wild, was in London during May 1967. Knowing that fellow Cambridge outfit Pink Floyd were recording ...
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: Uncle Charlie And His Dog Teddy
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, August 1997
AFTER A bunch of friends, including a young Jackson Browne, figured that singing Bill Monroe and Mississippi John Hurt songs in the back of McCabe's ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1997
COMPARED TO his tremendous gigs at Ronnie Scott's a year or two ago, when Dr John was accompanied by a horn section that included Alvin ...
Steve Miller Band at the Greek Theatre Los Angeles
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, September 1997
THIRTY YEARS in the rock 'n' roll business. A man without a record label. A man who packed the Greek Theatre playing absolutely nothing from ...
Taj Mahal at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, September 1997
HENRY ST. CLAIR FREDERICKS named himself Taj Mahal with good reason: he's a monument who can dance with an easy grace and joyful lightness delightfully ...
Fleetwood Mac: The Way We Were
Report and Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, September 1997
IT IS DEJA VU of the very strangest sort on this May night in Burbank, California. Thrilled to be at this invitation-only event, each and ...
World Party: At Shepherd's Bush Empire
Report by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 1997
"I WISH he'd stop wiping his nose," moans the guy in the next seat. Even without his nasal hygiene tic, the object of this ...
Profile and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, September 1997
FEBRUARY 1992. The Melody Maker's young Oxford correspondent pops up Cowley Road to the old Co-Op dining hall, a glamour-free venue – small stage at ...
Jayhawks, The: The Jayhawks: Riviera Theatre, Chicago
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1997
DESPITE SERIOUS competition from an important Chicago Bulls game, the gilded relic that is the Riviera is close to packed tonight for a double-header by ...
Henry McCullough, Wings: Hello, Goodbye: Henry McCullough & Wings
Interview by Colin Harper, MOJO, September 1997
Author's Note: Both Trevor Hodgett and myself wrote a fair amount about local guitar legend Henry McCullough during the '90s. Indeed, Trevor still does. When ...
Beach Boys, The: How to Buy The Beach Boys
Discography by Fred Dellar, MOJO, September 1997
THE GOOD NEWS is that the racks are full of Beach Boys CDs. The bad news is that many of them are not the ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, September 1997
WHAT ARE Oasis for? They were Built To Be Big. Their Long-Awaited-All-Important-Third-Album, Be Here Now, is about as big as a rock record can get. ...
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1997
“Unplugged” versions of ten Webb staples, performed at the grand piano by The Man Himself. Vocal cameos by Shawn Colvin (Didn’t We), Marc Cohn (If ...
Johnny Cash: How To Buy Johnny Cash
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, October 1997
COLLECTING ALBUMS by Arkansas' Man In Black is a doddle. For starters, he's never made any really bad ones. And most of the ...
Portishead: You Only Live Twice
Interview by Paul Trynka, MOJO, October 1997
They inspired with Dummy. And nearly expired making its successor. As Portishead finally deliver their eagerly-awaited second album. Paul Trynka uncovers the turmoil behind their ...
Elton John: Sound Your Funky Horn
Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, October 1997
Elton John blows his own horn ...
Obituary by David Toop, MOJO, October 1997
"MUSIC IS THE HEALING FORCE OF the universe," So said saxophonist Albert Ayler, whose body was found floating in New York’s East River many years ...
Verve, The: The Verve: Urban Hymns
Review by John McCready, MOJO, October 1997
I CAN'T HAVE BEEN ALONE in not being convinced. Yet there were people from day one and the debut LP A Storm In Heaven ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Bridges To Babylon
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1997
EMBOLDENED BY the success of both Voodoo Lounge and Stripped, the Stones have retained Don Was as co-producer for their third album in succession, a ...
Ocean Colour Scene: Marchin' Already
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 1997
OCEAN COLOUR SCENE stir mighty passions in the breasts of some — Paul Weller and Noel Gallagher being the conspicuous celeb celebrants — and leave ...
Björk: Bjork: Homogenic (One Little Indian)
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, October 1997
JUST HOW good is Bjork? Artists appearing fully-formed, uncompromisingly individual, interesting but often disturbingly idiosyncratic – think of Thelonious Monk or even Kate Bush – ...
Beatles, The: Derek Taylor: Obituary
Obituary by Richard Williams, MOJO, November 1997
IN 1963, WHEN BRIAN EPSTEIN INVITED HIM TO HANDLE the Beatles' PR, Derek Taylor was a 31-year-old national newspaper reporter with a suit and tie. ...
Biff Rose: Whaddya Mean You’ve Never Heard of Biff Rose?
Profile by Rob Chapman, MOJO, November 1997
IF YOU KNOW THE NAME at all it's probably for ‘Fill Your Heart’, the jaunty item that kicks off side two of David Bowie's Hunky ...
Profile and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, November 1997
THE RICKETY HAMMERSMITH RESIDENCE WHICH houses TFI Friday’s dressing rooms is an alarming place to find yourself, and not just because there’s a chance of ...
Jackson Browne: The Next Voice You Hear — The Best Of… (Elektra)
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 1997
Jackson Browne gives a track by track rundown to Andy Gill ...
Oasis, Verve, The: Oasis/The Verve: London, Earl's Court
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 1997
AS PAUL Du Noyer wrote recently, somewhere along the road to epoch-making Oasis "took it as their job to cheer the country up". To which ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1997
RICHARD DAVIES is cooped up in the Turtle Creek barn, a hallowed old recording studio haunted by ghosts of Woodstock past and present. (A picture ...
Rolling Stones, The, Keith Richards: Keith Richards: How Do You Stop?
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1997
"DON’T BE MISLED!" shouts the faded 8" x 8" flyer propped up on a baby grand piano in the mansion Keith Richards is renting in ...
Caravan, Kevin Ayers: Caravan/Kevin Ayers: London, Astoria
Essay by Rob Chapman, MOJO, November 1997
IT'S THE gathering of the Canterbury faithful. The main event is the original — as near as dammit — Caravan line-up. That other former Wilde ...
Billie Holiday: How to Buy Billie Holiday
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, November 1997
TIME WAS when Billie Holiday records were hard to come by. But Motown's filmed version of her life, based on a dubious autobiography to which ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, November 1997
Fourth album in three years from Kurt Wagner's Nashville swingers is a pithy eight tracks in duration, including an instrumental title number and three compositions ...
Zombies, The: The Zombies: The Class Act
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, November 1997
EVEN THE MOST MICROSCOPIC EXAMINATION of early publicity shots of bookish, bespectacled quintet The Zombies yields no clue that these middle class English boys in ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: How The South Rose Again: The Soaring Flight and Tragic Fall of Lynyrd Skynyrd
Retrospective and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, November 1997
THE DAY BEFORE THE SECOND MOST FAMOUS plane crash in rock history, the right engine of the 1948 Convair aircraft carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd backfired over ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: The Pet Sounds Sessions
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 1997
The stereo mix, outtakes, session excerpts, stack o' tracks, stack o'vocals: more Pet Sounds you couldn't hope for, on 4 CDs. ...
Leonard Cohen: More Best Of (Columbia)
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 1997
A CATCH-UP collection of the best of the past couple of decades for those who fell in love with, or to, early Len and may ...
Todd Rundgren: With A Twist (Emi/Guardian)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1997
Challenged to re-record a number of his 'greatest hits' – by a label which has tried the same experiment with Jimmy Webb and Alice Cooper ...
Doors, The: 10 Questions for The Doors’ Ray Manzarek
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1997
EVER SINCE Jim Morrison’s death there have been many Elvis-style, alive-and-well-and- pumping-gas ‘sightings’. Has it ever crossed your mind they may be right? ...
Pixies, The: Hello Goodbye: Joey Santiago & The Pixies
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, December 1997
HELLO – September 1986CHARLES [FRANCIS] and I were suite-mates rather than room-mates at the University of Massachusetts. Like me, he'd gone to college in the ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby Stills & Nash: At the Universal Amphitheater, 1997
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, December 1997
"I DIDN'T CUT IT," David Crosby announced from the stage of LA's Universal Amphitheater, a pained grin on his face. "It's falling out." And indeed, ...
Led Zeppelin: The BBC Sessions (Atlantic)
Review and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1997
Led Zeppelin's first official all-live release since 1976's The Song Remains The Same. The 2-CD set is drawn from sessions recorded for the BBC before ...
Move, The: The Move: Movements
Review and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, December 1997
TO ANYONE who never saw Tony Secunda's little scam-mongerers in their psychpop pomp, the clip of The Move that turned up on VH1's Beat Beat ...
Boz Scaggs: My Time: A Boz Scaggs Anthology
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1997
STILL REGARDED over here primarily as a kind of lounge-lizard soulman — sort of Bryan Ferry with roots — thanks to his hugely successful mid-70s ...
Burt Bacharach: The Look Of Love
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1997
Three-CD box packing 75 examples of highly-crafted pop magic and spanning four decades. The gang’s all here — Dionne, Dusty, Cilla — with only Aretha’s ...
Doors, The: The Doors: The Doors Box Set
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1997
4-CD grab-bag of rarities, outtakes, live recordings and fave tracks selected by the surviving Doors ...
Oasis: Big Brother Is Watching You
Retrospective and Interview by Nick Kent, MOJO, December 1997
...but we are not allowed to watch back. Nick Kent tells the story of the TV documentary the band don't want you to see. ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1997
Luscious five-CD box of gospel/country/blues/soul classics spanning five decades and thirteen labels in the genre-busting career of Brother Ray. ...
Jimi Hendrix: South Saturn Delta
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, December 1997
IN WHICH the new management of Planet Hendrix takes its first steps into the marginal, semi-canonical hinterlands of the Great Man's recorded legacy and returns ...
Cornershop: When I Was Born for the 7th Time
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, Fall 1997
THIS IS A GOOD party record: loose, funny, warm – exemplary genre-trashing by musicians who have a great recollection (as they chant on 'Brimful ...
Johnny Thunders: Born To Lose: A Film About Johnny Thunders
Report by Paul Gorman, MOJO, 1998
NINETEEN YEARS in gestation, Born To Lose – which matches the addled life and times of its subject Johnny Thunders by being simultaneously intriguing and ...
Sandy Denny, Fotheringay, Fairport Convention: Angel Of Avalon: Sandy Denny
Retrospective by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 1998
ON THE AFTERNOON of Monday, April 18th, 1978, a young London-based musician named Jon Cole left his flat in Barnes, climbed into his Datsun Cherry ...
Sheryl Crow: Abbey Road Studios, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1998
IT'S ALL very odd. A big, tall, whitewashed room with padded walls: at one end sits Sheryl Crow with longtime guitar player Tim Smith – ...
De La Soul: Bar Cuba, Macclesfield
Live Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, 1998
As part of a British mini-tour ahead of an album set for September, America’s most innovative hip hop outfit came to a small, friendly club ...
Gene Clark: Flying High (Polydor)
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, 1998
UNTIL RECENTLY, Gene Clark has been one of rock's best kept secrets. Harassed by his Byrd colleagues, ignored as the real inventor of country rock ...
Caetano Veloso: Tropicalia CDs: Samba takes a trip
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 1998
ON THE DAY that man first trod upon the moon, Brazilian stars Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were bidding a reluctant farewell to their homeland. ...
Belle And Sebastian: Belle and Sebastian: The Ever-So-Secret Seven
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, January 1998
"IT ALL STARTED at open stage sessions at The Halt Bar in Glasgow," recalls Belle & Sebastian bassist Stuart David. "Drunken Saturday afternoon shambles ...
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, January 1998
Every month we navigate the high-water marks, rapids and stagnant ponds of a prolific artist’s output, so you don’t have to. We continue with... ...
Jane's Addiction: Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco
Live Review by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, January 1998
Set list: Ocean Size/Ain't No Right/Then She Did/Stop/Three Days/Mountain Song/Summertime Rolls/Jane Says/Classic Girl/Chip Away/Ted,Just Admit it/I Would For You. ...
Beck: El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Marc Weingarten, MOJO, January 1998
BECK MAY be Modern Rock's master ironist, but he takes his roots music very seriously. They're just very gnarled roots, is all. ...
Kiss: KISS: Back catalogue reissues
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1998
Kiss/ Hotter Than Hell// Dressed To Kill/ Alive!/ Destroyer/ Rock And Roll Over/ Love Gun/ Alive II/ Double Platinum/ Dynasty/ Unmasked/ Music From The Elder/ ...
Them: The Story Of Them Featuring Van Morrison (Deram)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, January 1998
SOMEHOW THE legend has grown up that Them comprised one stone genius and a bunch of hapless fools, dispensable at whim. It's understandable, as said ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1998
The complete JD story, from Warsaw to 'Atmosphere', compiled by the band’s surviving members with Jon Savage and including dozens of outtakes, unreleased demos, and ...
John Fred and his Playboy Band: John Fred And His Playboy Band
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, January 1998
IF JOHN LENNON'S diction had been just a bit clearer, John Fred And His Playboy Band might never have scored their US Number 1 hit, ...
Yes live at Los Angles Universal Amphitheater
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, February 1998
IT'S ALWAYS seemed a tragic waste of snottiness that some safety-pinned '70s punk combo never thought to take the early, pre-Roger Dean Yes logo – ...
Todd Rundgren: 'Go Ahead, Ignore Me!'
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1998
HELLO, it’s him. ...
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, February 1998
"I WAS MERELY a pawn in a big chess game," said Frankie Lymon, just months before he died of a heroin overdose on February 28, ...
Spiritualized: The Mile High Club: Spiritualized in the Sky
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1998
SPIRITUALIZED: a concoction of the cosmological and the pharmaceutical enjoying high times in Britain. Now Jason Pierce is spending two months turning on America. Barney ...
Mark Hollis, Talk Talk: Mark Hollis on Mark Hollis
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, February 1998
Why all-acoustic this time? ...
High Llamas, The: High Llamas: Sean O'Hagan on Cold And Bouncy
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1998
Sylvie Simmons talks to Sean O'Hagan ...
Electric Light Orchestra: Light Years
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 1998
Mid-priced, 2-CD, 38-track collection of all their singles. ...
High Llamas, The: High Llamas: Cold And Bouncy (Alpaca Park)
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, February 1998
IF YOU LOVE The Beach Boys and other purveyors of the pocket symphony as much as the highest Llama Sean O'Hagan obviously does, then Hawaii ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 1998
AC/DC's box- set tribute to late vocalist Bon Scott comes in packs of four or five CDs (remastered Back In Black optional). Includes rare and/or ...
B.B. King: How to buy B.B. King
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, March 1998
HE’S FILED under ‘Blues’. Which is convenient. But Riley ‘Blues Boy’ King can be anything you want him to be — king of the juke ...
Bert Berns: The Soul Man with a Huckster's Heart
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1998
HE WAS, said Jerry Wexler, "a paunchy, nervous cat with a shock of unruly black hair". He looked like a vaguely disreputable cross between Gene ...
Profile by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1998
FIRMLY IN the tradition of orch-pop mavericks like Scott Walker and Jimmy Webb, Plush caused a minor commotion three years ago with the Drag City ...
Blue Oyster Cult: California Club Caprice, Redondo Beach, CA
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, March 1998
WHEN ONE plopped down the appropriate coinage for the self-titled debut of the Blue Oyster Cult in 1972, one prepared to enjoy the hard-edged glory ...
Jefferson Airplane: Surrealistic Pillow/Crown Of Creation/Volunteers
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, March 1998
Straight mid-price reissues of the Airplane's second, fourth and sixth albums – first time in the UK for Surrealistic Pillow ...
Village People: Young Men! The Village People
Retrospective and Interview by Peter Silverton, MOJO, March 1998
"YOUNG MAN!" IT BUTTONHOLES YOU. And then it requires that your body shapes the letters which form the acronym for the Young Men’s Christian Association. ...
Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 1998
Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, aged 25 on March 23, is one of the great monuments of rock history – as overwhelming aesthetically ...
Holger Czukay: No Borders Here: Holger Czukay’s Movies and On The Way To Peak Of Normal
Review and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, March 1998
Mute’s admirable disinterring of the entire Can-related catalogue reaches Holger The Bassman’s first two solo albums. ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1998
THE BARRICADES on the pavement outside Claridges are draped with small girls in big Dr Martins who are gazing at a door. The door is ...
Obituary by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, April 1998
CARL WILSON didn't get to record his first lead vocal for the Beach Boys until April 30, 1965, almost four years into the group's career. ...
Sarah McLachlan, Jewel: Lady’s Day: Lilith Fair
Report and Interview by Edward Helmore, MOJO, April 1998
AT RISK OF PROVOKING EITHER THE TRADITIONAL yawn or a punch in the face whenever it is suggested that this is the year of women ...
Nina Simone: How To Buy Nina Simone
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, April 1998
IN SOME WAYS, things haven't changed overmuch since Eunice Waymon opted to change her name to Nina Simone so that her mother wouldn't find out ...
Jack Nitzsche: Ten Questions For Jack Nitzsche
Interview by Harvey Kubernik, MOJO, April 1998
HOW DID YOU first meet Phil Spector? ...
James Brown, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins: Bootsy Collins on Bootsy Collins
Interview by Marc Weingarten, MOJO, April 1998
‘Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine’James Brown (King single, 1970) ...
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, Rob Chapman, MOJO, April 1998
IF YOU spent the early '70s worshipping false idols with feet of clay when you could have been listening to these finely crafted records then ...
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 1998
2-CD set coupling the electro-duo’s 1977 debut with the infamous 23 Minutes Over Brussels flexi-disc and an unreleased 1978 live set from CBGBs. ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 1998
WHITE GUYS from the '60s R&B generation don't get the same latitude as black "originals" to spend their last 20 or 30 years nestling back ...
R.L. Burnside: R. L. Burnside: Live in Detroit
Live Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, May 1998
"WELL, WELL, WELL..." ...
Rod Stewart: How to Buy Rod Stewart
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, May 1998
"A WHITE person can sing the blues with just as much conviction as a negro. All these negro singers singing about 'walking down the railroad ...
B.B. King, Robert Lockwood Jr., Lowell Fulson: B.B. King: Bright Lights Big City
Report and Interview by Paul Trynka, MOJO, May 1998
Fifty years ago B.B. King arrived in Memphis, Tennessee, and found himself in the eye of a musical hurricane. Today he celebrates the giants who ...
I Feel Like I Win When I Lose: The Eurovision Song Contest
Retrospective by Rob Chapman, MOJO, May 1998
WHAT HAVE FRANCOISE HARDY, Esther Ofarim, and Ofra Haza got in common? Answer, they are all fine singers. But before they got such deserved reputations ...
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, May 1998
Eagerly-anticipated follow-up to 1994’s Protection, 64 minutes of guitar-driven downbeats, featuring the toppermost tonsils of Horace Andy and the angelic ambience of Liz Fraser on ...
Electric Eels, The: The Electric Eels: The Eyeball Of Hell
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, May 1998
THE ELECTRIC Eels operated in a no-man's land that now seems fascinating: that mid-'70s moment between glitter and punk rock. It wasn't as though they ...
Pulp: This Is Hardcore (Island)
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, May 1998
WHY ARE Pulp interesting? Previously, of course, the Misfit King, their smarter-than-average frontman/lyricist with his louche irony and left-field charisma was the main answer. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 1998
"WE WERE POOR, BUT WE WERE happy," Paul Rodgers wryly intones. He is the son of a Middlesbrough docker, his mother a housewife who tended ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Walking Into Clarksdale
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mat Snow, MOJO, May 1998
WHEN, IN 1994, MTV approached Robert Plant – otherwise engaged making records with unknown youngbloods, and saying rude things about Jimmy Page for working with ...
Tori Amos: From The Choirgirl Hotel
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 1998
IT'S NOT at all what I expected. I'd spoken to Tori just before the album was completed, and the few finished tracks I'd heard were ...
Report by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1998
SOMETIMES IT'S BEST to wipe the slate clean, in music as well as in life. Such was the philosophy of Harry Partch (1901-1974), one of ...
Brian Wilson: Let's Go Trippin!
Memoir by David Dalton, MOJO, June 1998
IT WAS JULY 1967, the Summer of Love, on Zuma Beach, California that I first met Brian Wilson. It was one of those loony episodes ...
Peter Green: Ronnie Scott's Club, London
Live Review by Keith Altham, MOJO, June 1998
THE FIRST time I ever reviewed Peter Green in concert, he was with Fleetwood Mac at the Albert Hall in the '60s; a lean, bearded ...
Brian Eno: To Infinity and Beyond
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1998
THESE DAYS, you have to catch Brian Eno as and when you can. Always peripatetically inclined, he now spends even more time abroad — ...
Saint Etienne: Good Humor (Heavenly)
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 1998
FACED WITH Sarah, Bob and Pete's latest creamy confection, smothered in schmaltz and techno-lite topped off with Astrud Gilberto vocals, it's easy to dismiss them ...
Eddi Reader: Angels And Electricity (Blanco Y Negro)
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, June 1998
EVEN ALLOWING for our response to singing being largely subjective, some voices just do the job, don't they? For me, Eddi Reader is up there ...
Jeff Buckley: Sketches (For My Sweetheart The Drunk) (Columbia)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 1998
FANS OF Grace might find this album tough going. For one thing, it's hard to divorce the circumstances of its existence from the music – ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1998
"I'LL TELL you something," offers Shirley Manson conspiratorially at the start of this second load of Garbage, "I am a wolf, but I like to ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1998
BILLY CORGAN certainly had his work cut out for him after 1995’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. That multi-multi-platinum double CD turned more than ...
Massive Attack: Dark Side of the Spliff: Massive Attack
Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, July 1998
"ME AND ANGELO, OUR GUITARIST, got stuck in a save in Padstow," says Massive Attack’s Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, talking about one particularly eventful sojourn ...
Bobby Womack: 10 Questions for Bobby Womack
Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, July 1998
What were you up to in the studio last night? ...
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, July 1998
Set List Van Morrison: Sweet Thing/You Make Me Feel So Free/Burning Ground/It Once Was My Life/Cleaning Windows/Vanlose Stairway/That's Life/Days Like This/Sometimes We Cry/Moondance/This Weight/Tupelo Honey/Why ...
Elliott Smith: Mojo Rising: Elliott Smith
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1998
IS THIS a fairy tale or a corporate rock nightmare? Taciturn 28-year-old indie songster is taken up by maverick movie director and wakes to find ...
Apres Nous Le Deluge: The Nouvelle Vague Of Pop Francaise
Report and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, July 1998
"THERE’S NOTHING HAPPENING in England right now. It’s like 1975. Deep Purple for me are like The Prodigy. Led Zeppelin are Chemical Brothers." Daniel Auxerre, ...
Gram Parsons: The Good Ol’ Boy
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 1998
ON A WARM fall night in the tie-dyed rock’n’roll town of Woodstock, with the maple leaves turning to gold and purple on the mountains that ...
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, July 1998
LONG AFTER YOU AND I HAVE RETURNED to sub-atomic dust particles, Sun Ra will probably be acclaimed as the greatest composer of the 20th century. ...
Review by Colin Harper, MOJO, July 1998
THE SOPHISTICATED BEGGAR, the Valentine, the Loony On The Bus... Roy Harper has worn these and other Lifemasks for more than 30 years now and ...
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1998
"How do you stop... before it’s too late?" ...
Overview by Sid Griffin, MOJO, August 1998
JUST ACROSS HOLLYWOOD Boulevard from Mann's Chinese Theatre, where the stars imprint their hands and feet in cement, stands the Roosevelt Hotel. A showplace hotel ...
Live Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 1998
AFTER THE quagmire of 1997 it surely couldn’t be Pop Passchendaele II could it? Oh yes it could. Unlike last year, when the Glasto monsoon ...
Prince: 18 Questions for THE ARTIST (still generally known as Prince)
Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, August 1998
How did you spend your 40th birthday? ...
Joni Mitchell: The Unfiltered Joni Mitchell
Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, August 1998
IT'S A SATURDAY NIGHT IN Burbank, California, and perhaps 200 invited guests are sitting in a circular arrangement of plush chairs, overstuffed sofas, even cross-legged ...
Randy Newman: "I Love You, You C**t!"
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1998
THE FOLK singer Dave Van Ronk called him "the Hoagy Carmichael of the ’60s". His boyhood friend and longtime producer Lenny Waronker tagged him "King ...
Ry Cooder: How to Buy Ry Cooder
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, August 1998
BETTER KNOWN for bottleneck than even the M25, Ryland Cooder remains a cult figure despite appearing on records by the Rolling Stones, the Monkees, Johnny ...
Creatures, The, Siouxsie & The Banshees: 10 Questions for Siouxsie Sioux
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, September 1998
Is it true that you split the Banshees because the Sex Pistols reformed? ...
Keith Moon: Patent British Exploding Drummer
Profile and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, September 1998
BOY, HOW WE CHERISH ROCK'S foundation myths. The idea that merchant seamen brought back rare R&B records to Liverpool docks and fuelled the Merseybeat ...
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968
Review by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, September 1998
Groundbreaking garage-punk compilation expanded into a 4-CD box: over 100 big hits, hip misses, influential tracks, cultural oddities and sonic abominations. ...
Chic, Donna Summer: Your Booty, My 12-Inch: Disco Revisited
Guide by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 1998
YOWSAH, YOWSAH, YOWSAH. Twenty years after the dizzy heights of Discomania, the monster is back in our midst – in movies like Paul Thomas Anderson’s ...
Willie Nelson: 10 Questions for Willie Nelson
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1998
Does writing and making records get harder or easier with time? ...
Rory Gallagher: Ballad of a Thin Man
Retrospective by Colin Harper, MOJO, October 1998
"HE SUFFERED A LOT. His health was bad. He had a problem with drink. His relationships with women were all messed up because of his ...
Mott The Hoople: All The Young Dudes — The Anthology
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, October 1998
Triple-decker sandwich of hot Mott. All the hits, all your faves and all the other stuff too. Odds’n sods included Bowie’s guide-vocal version of 'Dudes'. ...
Walker Brothers, The: The Walker Brothers:Take It Easy/Portrait/Images
Review by Richard Williams, MOJO, October 1998
Their first three albums, remastered for CD, each almost doubled with extra tracks. ...
Manic Street Preachers: This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1998
FOLLOW-UP TO 1996's chart-topping Everything Must Go. Named after a line in a speech by miner's son and NHS founder Aneurin Bevan. ...
Burt Bacharach, Elvis Costello: Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
Review and Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, October 1998
Two years in the making, the full-on follow-up to ‘God Give Me Strength’, their collaboration from the soundtrack to Grace Of My Heart. ...
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 1998
Sheryl Crow: The Globe Sessions She built her own studio in New York and the world dropped in. ...
How to Buy Greenwich Village Folk
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, November 1998
TOM PAXTON recalls that he, along with Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, David Blue, Eric Andersen, Pat Sky and Phil Ochs, once called the Village home. ...
Kiss & Make-Up: The Perfect Glam Rock Soundtrack
Guide by Jon Savage, MOJO, November 1998
IN THE OPENING minutes of todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine, a gaggle of lads hurtle down a drab city street, tottering in their platforms, clad in ...
Maria McKee: Dingwalls, London
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, November 1998
SITTING COMFORTABLY? Sexy, tear-duct prickling songs in voice that defies science. ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 1998
R.E.M., MORE than just about any band you can name, were whacked mightily with the Great Rock Dilemma stick: how does an intelligent, introspective, underground ...
Taj Mahal: The Birth Of His Blues: Taj Mahal
Review and Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, November 1998
Tracks: Leaving Trunk / Statesboro Blues / Checkin' Up On My Baby / Everybody's Got To Change Sometime / E Z Rider / Dust My ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 1998
HERETOFORE, MERCURY Rev have trodden that fine line between order and chaos with a, shall we say, idiosyncratic sense of equilibrium. Part of the appeal ...
Bob Dylan: Live 1966 - The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert
Review by Richard Williams, MOJO, November 1998
SO HERE it is, the Holy Grail of rock'n'roll, famed in song and story for a generation, finally on sale at your local record store. ...
Jobriath: I'm Ready For My Close-Up: Jobriath
Retrospective by Rob Cochrane, MOJO, November 1998
Glam rock was a movie in search of a soundtrack. Today, Velvet Goldmine is that movie, but 25 years ago the publicity machine roared into ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1998
On her last proper album, 1995’s very fabulous To Bring You My Love, P.J. Harvey slipped on a slinky red dress and covered up the ...
Pete Townshend, Noel Gallagher and friends at the Sound Republic
Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 1998
WHEN WORLDS kaleid... It’s the second "launch" night at Sound Republic, all chrome and cocktails and biz/media chatterati who won’t shut their yap no matter ...
Frank Zappa: I was a Teenage Moose Freak!
Report by Rob Chapman, MOJO, December 1998
FREE-FORM RADIO was one of the great innovations of the American Underground. From 1966, when the Federal Communications Commission freed up the FM band, to ...
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, MOJO, December 1998
He couldn't read. He couldn't write. He couldn't stop screwing up. Yet Hank Williams is a giant of popular music without whom rock'n'roll might never ...
Beck: The Shock of the Old: Beck and the New Roots Explosion
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1998
"...to be an American (unlike English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always ...
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, 1999
Tangled webs, anyone? Rock’n’roll’s got them by the skein, especially when it comes to money. But the case of The Verve, Allen Klein and Andrew ...
Frank Sinatra: The Best of Frank Sinatra: A Home Taping Special
Guide by Chris Ingham, MOJO, 1999
BECAUSE OF THE near-flawless nature of a handful of albums (Wee Small Hours, Songs For Swingin' Lovers, A Swingin' Affair, Only The Lonely), it would ...
Dexy's Midnight Runners: Regrets? I’ve Had A Few: Dexys Midnight Runners
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 1999
This is the full version of an interview with Kevins Rowland and Archer published in MOJO in 1999. ...
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, 1999
SO EFFICIENT, SO all-pervasive has been Canadian pianist-singer Diana Krall's rise in the jazz world (and beyond, in sales terms), an American jazz magazine offered ...
Iggy Pop: London, Shepherds Bush Empire
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 1999
HE WALKS through the cones of striped, sick-white lights, shirt off, a graceful, sinewy man with an impossible six-pack and road-map veins. He sits down ...
Skip Spence : Alexander Spence: Oar (Sundazed)
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, 1999
THE PASSING OF TIME has edged some psych esoterica into the mainstream, and Oar is a shining example. At once individual confession, generational narrative, and ...
Olivia Tremor Control, The: Olivia Tremor Control: Black Foliage (Blue Rose/ V2)
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, 1999
THE GOOD NEWS is that this double album maintains the high quality of OTC's Dusk At Cubist Castle, which updated the methodology of classic psychedelia ...
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, 1999
KAK'S ONE and only album – released in the US during January 1969 – captures the Bay Area boom at its furthest outreach. ...
Air, Sean Lennon: Air/Sean Lennon: Ritz, Manchester
Live Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, January 1999
SOMEONE ONCE said of Dylan's Renaldo & Clara that, while it didn't convince you that he was a great film-maker, it did confirm that he ...
Mercury Rev: On The Other Side: Mercury Rev
Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, January 1999
HOW MANY BANDS ARE THERE who have made their best records after losing their lead singer? Whoever said "Marillion", go and sit in the corner, ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1999
THE WAY Lucinda Williams sighs "Hi" down the phoneline from Florida instantly communicates a deep fatigue. She and her band have just motored up from ...
Book Review by Fred Dellar, MOJO, January 1999
IT WAS during the '50s and early '60s that a young trumpet-player from York – ambitious, steeped in jazz tradition but possessing a unique pop ...
Roy Orbison: The Lonely Blue Dream of Roy Orbison
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 1999
HE STANDS stock-still, or nearly so. His right hand mechanically strums a black Gretsch, and his left leg slightly trembles. He could be a waxwork ...
Bruce Springsteen: It's a Vet's Life: Bruce Springsteen and Born in the USA
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 1999
It was Springsteen's most epic moment – and his most misunderstood. Phil Sutcliffe uncovers the double life of Born In The USA. ...
Bruce Springsteen: The Greatest Band In The World?
Profile by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, January 1999
"With Bruce, you wind up treating those four hours on stage as if someone said, You’ve got four hours left on Earth. What are you ...
Black Crowes, The: Black Crowes: By Your Side
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 1999
THIS ALBUM rocks. And rolls. And nigh on rollicks. Where their last album loped, this one struts. The record it's most like is their 1990 ...
Herbie Hancock: The Complete Blue Note '60s Sessions
Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, January 1999
THESE DAYS he's an avatar of jazz-funk, but Hancock's salad days offered a lot more than apprentice-work. Only 24 when he composed and recorded the ...
Harry Partch's Original Invented Instruments: Barbican, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1999
IT'S NOT every day – or every decade, come to that – that UK audiences get a chance to witness Harry Partch's bizarre instruments "in ...
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1999
With the MTV Unplugged era now firmly behind us, Beck is at some pains to explain that tonight’s show - one of only two in ...
Can: Hildegard Schmidt and Wolf Kampmann: Can Box: Book
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, February 1999
IN 1968 CAN walled themselves up in a Cologne studio and, give or take the odd defection, stayed there for the next nine years making ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Trenchtown Rock
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, February 1999
DOVETAILING NICELY with the recent 3-CD set from JAD Records, Trench Town Rock presents the most wide-ranging account yet of the second chapter of The ...
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1999
"And you don’t stop/Do the punk rock..." ...
Ennio Morricone: How to Buy Ennio Morricone
Guide by Rob Chapman, MOJO, March 1999
ENNIO MORRICONE single-handedly redefined our musical definition of the Western. Nobody can make jew’s harp and whistling sound more awe inspiring or one duck-call and ...
Robert Wyatt: Nothing Can Stop Robert Wyatt: An Interview
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 1999
THE DAY before I drive up to Lincolnshire to interview Robert Wyatt, there is a march through the streets of Santiago - a procession of ...
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings at Aberdeen Music Hall
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1999
ALL THINGS considered, the chilly, windswept environs of Aberdeen are probably not the best place to start your UK tour. At this remove from the ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 1999
THERE'S NOTHING BILL Callahan likes better than watching a Polaroid develop, "struck in this transition state, always surprising me". Some might say he needs to ...
Retrospective and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, March 1999
Like the set of a James Bond finale, the cavernous, converted power station of Metropolis Studios is all walkways, bridges and industrial lifts. At the ...
Randy Newman: Guilty: 30 Years of Randy Newman
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, March 1999
NEWMAN FANS have been baying for this kind of set for a while, especially as the songwriter's back catalogue has been unavailable on CD for ...
Del McCoury Band, The, Steve Earle: How Blue Was My Grass? Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 1999
DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT from 1997’s El Corazon, this excellent album is, in essence, a tribute to the late ‘Father of Bluegrass’ Bill Monroe, performed with Monroe’s ...
Todd Rundgren: Rundgren Reissued
Review and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, March 1999
Remastered reissues of the original one-man band's first five Bearsville albums – Runt; The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren; Something/Anything?; A Wizard, A True Star; Todd; ...
Jeff Beck: The Jeff Beck Interview
Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, April 1999
WHEN JEFF BECK WALKS INTO A PUBLIC SPACE, PEOPLE TURN and stare. They're seeing a fit-looking 50-something with stubble and an archetypal rock'n'roll haircut, wearing ...
Cassandra Wilson: Fellow Traveller
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 1999
Chris Ingham: What was the selection process for your Miles Davis tribute album Travelling Miles? ...
Tom Waits: What's He Building In There? An Interview with Tom Waits
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 1999
TOM WAITS squats down on the fender of his blue Coupe de Ville and tells a joke. ...
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 1999
Seventh album from Lou Barlow and chums, following up 1996’s Harmacy and featuring new drummer Russ Pollard. ...
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 1999
IN THE immediate post-Beatles period, Paul McCartney was a critic's whipping boy. Compared to the lustrous pop of Abbey Road, the open-hearted panoply of All ...
Japan, David Sylvian: David Sylvian
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 1999
He was the sensitive soul who fronted south London’s dodgiest glam-rockers, the World’s Most Lovely Man who chose tortured sainthood, pop’s preening popinjay who reinvented ...
Wings: Paul McCartney And Wings: Band On The Run
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 1999
25th anniversary 2-CD edition of 1973 classic, featuring US-related album (including 'Helen Wheels') plus audio documentary CD. ...
Lauryn Hill: Theatre at Madison Square Garden, NY
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1999
DID SOMEONE say breakout hit? Anyone who doubts the massive crossover impact of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill need only cast an eye across the ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: 10 Questions for Tom Petty
Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, May 1999
What's your fascination with San Francisco? Two years ago you staged 20 shows at the Fillmore, and now you're here for seven days. ...
Neil Young: At the Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, May 1999
A MAN less heard unadorned than in context – be it with Crazy Horse, Pearl Jam, The Bluenotes, the Stray Gators, the Shocking Pinks, ...
Irmin Schmidt, Can, Holger Czukay: The Can Founders: Columbiahalle, Berlin
Live Review by Richard Cook, MOJO, May 1999
Running order: Holger Czukay/Michael Karoli's Sofortkontakt/Irmin Schmidt & Kumo/Jaki Liebezeit's Club Off Chaos ...
Lee Hazlewood: The Ol' Sonofabitch
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 1999
ON A PERFECT Florida afternoon in late February, Lee Hazlewood is wedging himself into a large grey couch and eyeing a rather sad plate of ...
Ben Folds Five: The Unauthorised Biogrpahy Of Reinhold Messner
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, May 1999
Piano-led trio’s third album proper. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 1999
THEY HAD a dream. It was November 1970, and the greatest pop group of the decade was about to get off to a very inauspicious ...
Skip Spence , Moby Grape: Alexander 'Skip' Spence
Obituary by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, June 1999
"I'LL TELL YOU A GOOD ONE, a realy good one," says Jerry Miller, long-time guitarist with Moby Grape, warming to the subject of his former ...
Ben Folds Five: The Ben Folds Five: Steinway to Heaven
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, June 1999
IT'S TEMPTING TO IMAGINE that in eschewing guitars and positioning the grand piano as the centrepiece sound of their three maverick alt-pop albums, the Ben ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 1999
NOBODY COULD accuse Pavement of being rock archetypes. Take the group’s frontman Stephen Malkmus, who spends much of his spare time flyfishing virgin rivers and ...
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, June 1999
Every month we navigate the high-water marks, rapids and stagnant ponds of a prolific artist’s output, so you don’t have to. We continue with... ...
Ben Folds Five: Steinway to Heaven: The Ben Folds Five
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, June 1999
On a three-man mission to revive the grand piano’s sex appeal ...
Review by David Cavanagh, MOJO, June 1999
HEAD MUSIC is at once Suede's escape from their glam-pop confines and their belated arrival at the late '90s technological party. They've torn away at ...
Bad Company: The Original Bad Co. CD Anthology
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 1999
After a period of bad blood and bad music Bad Company's founding foursome reconvene around a two-CD retrospective. ...
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band: Grow Fins
Review and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, June 1999
"That’s right, the Mascara Snake." And even if it isn’t, someone will put it in a box set one day. A feast of leftover Beefheart ...
Duke Ellington: Black, Brown, Beige and Sacred: A Journey through Duke Ellington
Guide by Chris Ingham, MOJO, July 1999
IT'S HARD to overstate Duke Ellington's stature as a 20th century musician. Honoured by world leaders, respected by legit' cats and revered by jazz musicians ...
Wilco: 4.00 - 5.00pm: soundcheck/5.00 - 6.00pm: local press/6.00 - 6.05pm: cigarette break
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, July 1999
IT'S DARK IN an alley just off Hamburg's notorious Reeperbahn, a faint neon glow filters in from the street to reveal a gaggle of noisy ...
Rolling Stones, The, Brian Jones: Brian Jones
Retrospective by Rob Chapman, MOJO, July 1999
CHANCES ARE, regardless of where or what location you grew up in, there's a couple of types you've known at one time or another. Firstly, ...
Review by Ben Thompson, MOJO, July 1999
TERROR TWILIGHT'S penultimate track is a five and a half minute epic called 'The Hexx'. It begins with Stephen Malkmus taunting one of the swallows ...
Chemical Brothers, The: Chemical Brothers: Heeeere we go!
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 1999
The Chemical Brothers: Surrender First album since 1997's chart-topping Dig Your Own Hole features guest vocals from Noel Gallagher, Hope Sandoval, Jonathan Donahue and Bernard ...
David Toop: Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes In A Real World
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, July 1999
IF EXOTICA is, to quote a much used definition, nostalgia for places you've never visited, then the term has potentially universal application. Bearing in mind ...
Screaming Lord Sutch: Loony Institution: Screaming Lord Sutch
Obituary by Johnny Black, MOJO, August 1999
BRITAIN'S LONGEST-SERVING political party leader and rock'n'roll aristocrat has died at home in Harrow, Middlesex, on June 16. ...
Scritti Politti: This Week I am Mostly Wearing Soren Kierkegaard: Scritti Politti
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1999
GREEN STROHMEYER-GARTSIDE, to give him his full and slightly fantastical name, is feeling decidedly below-par on this muggy Manhattan afternoon. Clasping a Rolling Rock in ...
Iggy Pop talks to Barney Hoskyns
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 1999
What impact did the breakup of your marriage have on Avenue B? Curiously, once my back was up against the wall and I was really ...
Macy Gray: Lady Sings The Blues: Macy Gray’s On How Life Is
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, August 1999
Striking debut album from LA singer-songwriter. ...
Ramones, The: The Ramones: Hey! Ho! Let's Go! — The Ramones Anthology
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, August 1999
I DON'T KNOW if they ever made a Ramones pin-ball machine, but if not, they missed a trick. Just imagine: the ritual chant of "Hey!Ho! ...
Macy Gray: Where Billie meets Janis
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1999
AS THE MINISTRATIONS OF interchangeable soul divas turn what used to be soul music into an increasingly formulaic music experience, it’s a pleasure to be ...
Buzzcocks, The: The Buzzcocks: 10 Questions For Pete Shelley
Interview by David Cavanagh, MOJO, September 1999
...
Simon Reynolds: Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
Book Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1999
IT SAYS MUCH about our compulsive pre-millenial navel-gazing that several tomes about the past decade's "ecstacy culture" - Matthew Collin's Altered State, Jane Bussman's Once ...
Profile by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 1999
How Tom Rapp, of cult psychsters Pearls Before Swine, resurfaced thanks to a UK fanzine. ...
Nina Simone: Stocky And Wild-Eyed: Nina Simone at the Royal Festival Hall
Live Review by Lucy O'Brien, MOJO, September 1999
"EVERY GENERATION has to discover Nina Simone. She is evidence that female genius is real," says Germaine Greer, introducing tonight’s show, one of the highlights ...
Charles Manson, Dennis Wilson: Into the Heart of Darkness with Dennis Wilson
Retrospective by David Dalton, MOJO, September 1999
(If Christ Came Back as a Con Man, Or How I Started Out Thinking Charlie Manson Was Innocent and Almost Ended Up Dead...) ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, September 1999
FOR OVER A YEAR, Santana had built a reputation the hardest but most reliable way, by word of mouth. In their home town of ...
Alison Krauss: Forget About It
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 1999
The German immigrant’s daughter from Illinois, who somehow became a bluegrass child prodigy, moves on from purism to pure beauty. ...
Stereolab: Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage In the Milky Night (Duophonic)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, September 1999
Double-vinyl-length opus from the enduring and indefatigable South-east Londoners, half of it co-produced by Tortoise’s John McEntire, half by ex-Gastr del Sol member Jim O’Rourke. ...
Faces, The: The Faces: Good Boys....When They're Asleep
Review by David Cavanagh, MOJO, September 1999
WHEN THE FACES got together in the summer of 1969, they were not expected to amount to much. Three of them – Ronnie Lane, Ian ...
Retrospective by Mick Farren, MOJO, October 1999
They couldn’t sing. They couldn’t play. They were winding up the hippy establishment a decade before punk. And 30 years ago they enjoyed their finest ...
Tom Jones: The Super Furry Animal
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
Welsh before it was fashionable, prefers a straight glass to a line, no stranger to ladies’ lingerie, possessed of legendary staying power... He is Tom ...
Johnny Dowd: He’s About a Remover
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
"I’M REAL GOOD AT LOADING equipment. It’s funny ‘cos that’s always one thing that musicians gripe about, but it’s almost a relief for me after ...
Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music: 10 Questions for Bryan Ferry
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
Geordie space-crooner considers glam, going to the pictures with Eno, playing tennis against Tony Blair and life before rock. ...
Beatles, The, Paul McCartney: Paul McCartney: Run Devil Run
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 1999
THE LURE had been the chance of a lengthy one-on-one with Paul McCartney discussing all his solo albums. "You could turn it into a book," ...
Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions 1967-1969
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, October 1999
They Flew the Flag for Homegrown R&B ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 1999
Named after the NY street where Iggy and the ex Mrs Pop lived. Ten songs and three spoken word pieces recorded in a former East ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1999
A fourth helping of blue stew. Fourth album finds gifted slide guitarist broadening his approach. ...
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1999
WITH AN additional six songs bulking out the 10 featured on the original vinyl album, this is the first version of the Stop Making Sense ...
Jimi Hendrix: Street Fighting: Jimi Hendrix
Essay by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, November 1999
Your starter for ten: what do Jimi Hendrix and George Orwell have in common? ...
Henry McCullough, John Fahey: John Fahey/Henry McCullough: Elmwood Hall, Belfast
Live Review by Colin Harper, MOJO, November 1999
McCullough set list: Medley: 'Irish Tune'/'House Of The Rising Sun' / 'Failed Christian' / 'Locked In' / 'All I Wanna Do' / 'Murder In My ...
Julian Cope: Head On/Reposessed
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, November 1999
RICHARD HELL once claimed that he first noticed the schism between himself and Tom Verlaine when they were on acid. Hell wanted to play the ...
Pink Floyd: The Story of The Wall
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 1999
ON JUNE 16 THIS YEAR Rick Wright finally did what every therapist advises: confronted his Nemesis. "I think I'm the only one who's actually seen ...
Little Richard: 10 Questions for Little Richard
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 1999
The sultan of frutti on the Devil’s music, Pat Boone and the best hair pomade. ...
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 1999
AFICIONADOS OF clean, clever, honed American pop have had to make do with meagre rations of late. Thank God that 1999 has at least produced ...
Little Milton: Welcome to Little Milton (Malaco)
Review and Interview by Robert Gordon, MOJO, December 1999
Legendary blues and soul artist steps out with younger talent on his 13th album for Malaco ...
Pete Townshend: The Lifehouse Chronicles
Review and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, December 1999
Some day all music will be made this way. In 1970 it seemed so barking mad the band asked him to drop it. Now, Pete’s ...
AC/DC: Rock's oldest juvenile delinquents greet the 21st century
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, 2000
AC/DC: Stiff Upper Lip (EMI Liberty) ...
Nick Drake: Exiled From Heaven
Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, MOJO, January 2000
DURING THE ACADEMIC year of 1968-9, Cambridge University felt an alien influence from beyond its ancient facade of curtain walls and quiet quadrangles. Sober flag-stones ...
Review and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, January 2000
IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS, A HIATUS ALMOST unheard of in rock. In the 1970s. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen – studio auteurs infused with the ...
Gene Vincent: Hell's Angel: Gene Vincent
Retrospective by Mick Farren, MOJO, February 2000
He looked for all the world like a man in the grip of some dark, wrenching religious experience. The contorted figure in the black leather ...
Big Star, Alex Chilton: Wayward Sons: The Ballad of Big Star
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2000
THE SUN is going down on Memphis, site of rock’n’roll’s immaculate conception and explosive birth. On a warm spring evening, the Mississippi’s purplish-brown waters are ...
MC5: The MC5: The Big Bang (Rhino)
Review by Jon Savage, Dave DiMartino, MOJO, February 2000
First overall retrospective of seminal late ‘60s/early ‘70s rabble rousers: includes material from all stages of their career. ...
LA's Glam Revival And The Glitzy Return of Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco
Report and Interview by Paul Gorman, MOJO, March 2000
Something strange is happening on the streets of Los Angeles. Glam-metal kids, 17 years out of date, are back walking the streets. Ambivalent Bowie-esque sexuality ...
Obituary by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, March 2000
With his high, pure tenor and songs of peace, love and empowerment, Curtis Mayfield was a soul revolutionary whose influence spanned four decades. Ben Edmonds ...
Santana at The Tabernacle, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2000
WHEN THE ENTRANCE to the gig is bathed in the harsh glare of high wattage floodlights like the Academy Awards walkway, and you have to ...
Prince: An Interview with the Prince formerly known as The Artist
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, March 2000
First, a caveat. ...
Paul Weller: The Don: Paul Weller
Profile and Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, April 2000
He’s been assailed by business bosses, punk rivals and ex-bandmates. Now, with a landmark fifth album in the can. Paul Weller shows Chris ...
Led Zeppelin: Getting it Together at Bron-Y-Aur: The Story of Led Zeppelin III
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2000
Who’s moving into Bron-Y-Aur? Why, it’s that Led Zeppelin, come to shake off their blues roots and get talked. Phil Sutcliffe on the Welsh ...
Broadcast: The Noise Made By People
Review and Interview by Ben Thompson, MOJO, April 2000
"PRAM WANNABES", "indie milksops", "poor man's Stereolab"... these are just some of the cruel insults heaped upon Broadcast's head when they first poked it above ...
John Lennon: Imagine (Apple/EMI)
Review and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, April 2000
Straight reissue of classic album, with digital remastering treatment. ...
Holy Toledo: The Hines Farm Blues Club
Retrospective by Paul Gorman, MOJO, May 2000
Midnight movers, Ohio players, Gypsy Angels and Atomic Pirates gathered at the Hines Farm juke joint. Paul Gorman pays a visit. ...
James Carr: Lost Soul: James Carr
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 2000
THE SETTING is not a promising one. It’s late on a muggy Friday night, a "blues" club on Bleecker Street, NYC, June of 1996. A ...
Various Artists: The Immediate Single Collection
Essay by Rob Chapman, MOJO, June 2000
A 6-CD, 161-track box set of Oldham and Calder's '60s love-child. Billed as Happy To Be Part Of The Industry Of Human Happiness. ...
Prefab Sprout: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 2000
A THIRD of the way through this rare Sprout outing to the capital, Paddy McAloon dedicates the lovely, little-known 'Dragons' to the spouse of his ...
Janis Joplin, Bonnie Bramlett: Janis Joplin: Soul Sacrifice
Retrospective and Interview by David Dalton, MOJO, June 2000
She was no victim, but gave herself up to her music – and kept on giving. David Dalton hitches a ride with Janis Joplin, entertainer, ...
Jeff Buckley: Mystery White Boy (Columbia)
Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, June 2000
Posthumous collection of live tracks culled from the singer's '95-'96 Mystery White Boy tour. Released in tandem with 1995 concert video filmed in Chicago. ...
Retrospective by Mick Farren, MOJO, July 2000
ON JANUARY 7, 1980, THE BODY OF LARRY WILLIAMS WAS FOUND lying in a pool of blood on the garage floor of his Laurel Canyon ...
Bert Jansch, Davey Graham: Bert Jansch and Davey Graham
Retrospective and Interview by Colin Harper, MOJO, July 2000
NOTE: This piece was adapted and expanded, with additional material, from Dazzling Stranger: Bert Jansch And The British Folk & Blues Revival (Bloomsbury). It is ...
João Gilberto: Carnegie Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Bill DeMain, MOJO, August 2000
Set List: 'Doralice'/'Vivo Sohondo'/'Ecliose'/'Samba De Una Nota So'/'Samba Da Minha Terra'/'Voce Vai Ver'/'Bonita'/'Morena Boca De Ouro'/'A Felicidade'/'O Pato'/'Estate'/'Chega De Saudade'/'Um Abraco No Bonfa'/'Sem Compromisso'/'S'Wonderful'/'Wave'/'Triste'/'Eu Vim ...
Scott Walker: Scott; Scott2; Scott3; Scott4; Boy Child (Fontana/Mercury)
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, August 2000
Scott’s first four post-Walker Brothers solo outings plus a revamped ‘best of’. Originally issued between 1967 and 1969. They got better but sold less and ...
Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume 4
Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, August 2000
Billed as Smith’s ‘secret’ volume, the line-up was intended as the fourth in this celebrated series but never made it to the starting gate. ...
Sniffin' Glue: The Essential Punk Accessory
Retrospective and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, August 2000
WHEN THE FIRST Ramones album appeared in London, during the spring of 1976, it changed everything: not only the tempo and the look of rock, ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 2000
Three themed, career-spanning compilations, selected and introduced by the Man In Black. Extra linernotes by June Carter (Love), U2's Bono (God) and Quentin Tarantino (Murder). ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks: Hellfire Club
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 2000
Their innocent exterior concealed a story of murder, family feuds and skullduggery. But between the fights and disasters, the Kinks cut some of the finest ...
Victoria Williams: Water to Drink
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 2000
The helium-voiced singer's desert-recorded album, featuring Van Dyke Parks, Mark Olson, John Convertino (Giant Sand), DJ Bonebrake (X), Greg Leisz (k.d.lang), Danny Frankel (Marianne Faithfull) ...
Black Crowes, The, Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek (SPV)
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2000
Recorded live in October’99, a scorching blues-rock hit-packed double album like they used to make ‘em. ...
Cocteau Twins: The Cocteau Twins: We Are Not Amused
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 2000
"FUCKING HELL," says the tiny, tortured woman as she shakes her birdlike head. "I just wish I knew what the fucking hell happened. ’Cause everyone’s ...
John Lennon, Beatles, The: John Lennon: From the Quarrymen to the MBE
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, October 2000
"THAT WAS THE day," said John Lennon. "The day that I met Paul, that it started moving." ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2000
WITH EACH new U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
Ozzy Osbourne: Ten questions for Ozzy Osbourne
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2000
Mr John Osbourne on running the marathon, talking to horses, and "drinking the occasional beer". ...
Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel: Paul Simon: Life After The Capeman
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 2000
PAUL SIMON AND I are alone in a large, dim, empty room in a Manhattan rehearsal complex and he’s zippered up to his throat, ever-present ...
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, November 2000
PAUL SIMON and I are alone in a large, dim, empty room in a Manhattan rehearsal complex and he’s zippered up to his throat, ever-present ...
Bob Dylan: September 2000 UK Tour
Live Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 2000
"MY HEART'S in the Highlands, where the Aberdeen waters flow," sang Bob Dylan on 1997's gloriously gloomy Time Out Of Mind, "I'm gonna go there ...
Incredible Bongo Band, The: Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band
Interview by Angus Batey, MOJO, November 2000
THE AVUNCULAR 56-year-old American sat in a suite in London's Dorchester Hotel doesn't immediately strike you as a rock'n'roll type, but Michael Viner has quite ...
Band, The: The Band: Back To The Land
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, November 2000
Nestling beneath the forest-clad slopes of Overlook Mountain, a couple of hours drive north of New York City, the town of Woodstock has a sort ...
Various Artists: Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Collection 1960-2000 (Arhoolie)
Review by Tony Russell, MOJO, November 2000
A 5-CD box set and photo-packed book celebrate a life committed to roots music. Subtitled The Journey of Chris Strachwitz. ...
Faust: The Wumme Years 1970-1973
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, November 2000
A 5-CD BOX SET comprising the band’s first two Polydor LPs, Faust and So Far, and two further compilations of rarely heard material, BBC Sessions ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2000
Alt country wastrel goes it alone in the Apple. ...
Teenage Fanclub: Howdy! (Columbia)
Review and Interview by Nick Hornby, MOJO, November 2000
Sixth studio album from the Glaswegian sunshine pop band, latterly of Alan McGee’s now defunct Creation label. ...
Guide by Dave Godin, MOJO, December 2000
He’s helped turn on a new generation of fans to previously neglected soul stirrers. Now Dave Godin selects 20 of his favourite Deep Soul singers, ...
Emmylou Harris: Ghosts and Angels
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2000
The spectres of a war hero father and a doomed country troubador haunt her music. Emmylou Harris tells Phil Sutcliffe why she still hasn't found ...
Prince Buster: The Forum, London
Live Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, December 2000
WHERE DO skinhead women go during the week? You see the blokes: driving white vans, doing unmentionable things to your u-bend or even practicing as ...
Saints, The: The Saints: Wild About You (Raven/Hot)
Review and Interview by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 2000
First stellar collection of the Aussie garage punks’ late ‘70s triumphs: two CDs, 47 tracks, sleevenotes, unseen photos and discography. ...
Merle Haggard: If I Could Only Fly (Anti-Inc)
Review and Interview by Fred Dellar, MOJO, December 2000
A country music cornerstone tells it how it was. ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, December 2000
Does The Fabs' 'Best Of' Add Up? Packed 27-track single-disc summary of pop's best-loved repertoire, but no Please Please Me? Strawberry Fields Forever? Hello-o-o-o-o? ...
AC/DC Celebrate Their Quarter Century
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 2000
They've got all the essential ingredients: sweat, noise, booze – and choking on vomit. As AC/DC celebrate their quarter century, Sylvie Simmons toasts a band ...
Oasis: Familiar To Millions (Big Brother)
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2000
Wembley Stadium, July 21, complete concert, two CDs, unvarnished, rather magnificent. Oasis’s "topsy-turvy-fuckin’-weird year" closes defiantly. ...
Nikki Giovanni: Whaddya Mean You've Never Heard Of… Nikki Giovanni?
Retrospective by James Maycock, MOJO, 2001
IN THE CRAZY, HEADY DAYS of the Black Power era, Nikki Giovanni was one of the few female voices to offset the rampant machismo of ...
Profile and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 2001
HARBOUR NO ILLUSIONS, stardom screws you up. Don’t get used to the luxury and attention, it could leave as quickly as it came. No matter ...
Interview by Chris Ingham, MOJO, 2001
I WAS IN the Lionel Hampton band in ’49. Betty joined months after me, we picked her up in Detroit. We never sang together, everybody ...
Dictators, The: The Dictators: Go Girl Crazy
Review by Jeremy Gluck, MOJO, 2001
THESE OLD-SCHOOL rockers put punk on the musical map, opening the way, for better or worse, for two decades of divergent tunes and dissonant noise. ...
Retrospective by Harry Shapiro, MOJO, January 2001
IMAGINE THIS story: a world-famous guitarist decides to form a band where nobody is supposed to know it's him. While it's coming together, he falls ...
Serge Gainsbourg: A Rake's Progress
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2001
IF YOU WALK into the Montparnasse cemetery, the first thing you see is the enormous stone double bed where Charles Pigeon – the inventor of ...
Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures Volume 3
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 2001
"DEEP SOUL Records will be just what their name implies," the manifesto for Dave Godin's Deep Soul label declared when it launched in 1969. "Non-commercial ...
Gram Parsons: Another Side of This Life (Sundazed)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2001
Unheard mid-’60s folk recordings taped in Florida by Gram’s pal Jim Carlton. ...
Johnnie Taylor: Lifetime: A Retrospective Of Soul, Blues And Gospel 1956-1999
Review by Richard Williams, MOJO, February 2001
LIKE MANY soul singers, Johnnie Taylor was only as good as the songs he was given. But when those songs were good – and most ...
Retrospective and Interview by Ira Robbins, MOJO, February 2001
TELEVISION ENDED PRETTY much as they'd begun, with a show at a small Manhattan club. It was July 29, 1978, on a night Television myth ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 2001
"I FIRST HEARD IT sitting in an armchair in our living room. 1957. I was 12. My sister Annetta, who's four years older, had bought ...
Emerson Lake And Palmer: Emerson Lake & Palmer
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, March 2001
QUESTION: HOW DO EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER change A light bulb? A: They don't. Drummer Carl Palmer's personal karate instructor holds the bulb steady while ...
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, March 2001
ONE OF the most persistent canards about the mid-'60 – propagated by baby boomer marketing and right-wing journalism – is that the hippies were hopelessly ...
Staple Singers, The: I'll Take You There: The Everlasting Legacy of the Staple Singers
Retrospective by Andria Lisle, MOJO, April 2001
The drive from Memphis to Drew, Mississippi, is a treacherous one even today. Highway 61 will take you as far south as Clarksdale, before you ...
Kinks, The: The Kinks: The Kinks BBC Sessions
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, April 2001
NO DOUBT it's their sheer longevity, but The Kinks remain curiously undervalued: often cited as a key neo-Mod/Britpop inspiration – as if that's anything to ...
Air: 10,000 Hz Legend (Source/Virgin)
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 2001
Self-proclaimed "grown-up" album from French duo who created 1998’s million-selling retro-pop classic, Moon Safari, and inspired many imitators. ...
Tim Buckley: Morning Glory: The Tim Buckley Anthology
Review by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, April 2001
FOR AN OVERVIEW of a career that began in seemingly humble singer/songwriter tradition, shot skyward in a surge of near-astonishing artistic ambition, then apparently fizzled ...
Joe Meek: Hearing A New World: The Joe Meek Story
Retrospective by John McCready, MOJO, May 2001
NOTE: This piece originally featured in Mojo magazine in a truncated 8,000 word edit. this is the full near-12,000 word original piece. This is such ...
John Phillips, Mamas and The Papas, The: John Phillips: The Wolfking of LA
Obituary by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, May 2001
LIKE KEITH RICHARDS, WHOM HE often equalled in the extreme party stakes back in the blackout days of '70s rock excess, I always figured John ...
Bee Gees, The: The Bee Gees: You Lookin' At Me?
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, May 2001
"WHAT IMAGE?" ASKS BARRY Gibb. "I haven't got an image." What he does have, though, is a guitar. It's a second-hand customised hollow-bodied Epiphone, bought ...
Brian Eno: "So Why Are We Doing This?"
Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, May 2001
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFICULT, observing Brian Eno's early career as furnisher of funny noises to the original Roxy Music, to predict that three decades ...
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2001
SOME YEARS ago I interviewed Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile for MOJO. A musician known for his restless lifestyle, I asked him if there ...
Syd Barrett: Wouldn't You Miss Me? The Best Of Syd Barrett
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, May 2001
FIRST THINGS first. It's great. The long-lost 'Bob Dylan Blues', I mean. Lampooning the conformity of the folk-protest movement as much as it lampoons its ...
Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead: Bob Dylan: Life Among The Dead
Comment by Richard Williams, MOJO, June 2001
I SUPPOSE you would have to say that 1987 was not a great year for Bob Dylan, or for Bob Dylan's fans. He played harmonica ...
Ramones, The: Joey Ramone: Hail, Hail To The King
Obituary by Ira Robbins, MOJO, June 2001
JOEY RAMONE WASN'T WHAT YOU'D CALL A PUNK. According to the movies, punks are snarling juvenile delinquents well versed in sucker-punches, concealed weapons and grievous ...
Bob Dylan: The End Of Innocence
Retrospective by Jon Savage, MOJO, June 2001
WHAT AFFECTS you in your early teens goes very deep. By the time that you're 18, identity construction is already advanced, but at 11 you're ...
Bob Dylan: Blood On The Tracks
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 2001
AFTER HIS EXTRAORDINARY ACHIEVEMENTS OF the '60s, there should have been no doubt about Bob Dylan's position in the rock firmament. After all, he had ...
Charley Patton: The Definitive Charley Patton
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, June 2001
THERE'S 'DEFINITIVE', and then there's definitive. This complete collection – 58 performances on three CDs – of the recorded works of Charley Patton certainly earns ...
Review by Mick Houghton, MOJO, June 2001
IT STRETCHES from his first solo recordings to 'No More Lonely Nights', off the ill-advised Give My Regards To Broad Street. An odd place to ...
Edgar Broughton Band, The: The Edgar Broughton Band: Out Demons Out
Review and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, June 2001
IT'S 1970. The EBB are playing their final number, a Fugs-derived exorcism, and the mutton-chopped guitarist invites the assembled ranks of hippies, grebos and suedeheads ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley And The Wailers: Live!
Review by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, June 2001
ALONG WITH the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club and Prince at the Lyceum, these shows played in London by Bob Marley And The Wailers ...
Bee Gees, The: The Bee Gees: The Rogue Gene
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 2001
IT WAS EASTER 1965. THE STONES were at Number 1 in the UK with 'The Last Time', The Beatles and The Supremes were battling it ...
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, July 2001
THOUGH CONFUSING at least as many as it impressed at the time, seven months and several listens on, the litany of anguish that is Kid ...
Various: Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, July 2001
WITHIN THE rabid isolationism of the Bush regime, this is a remarkably generous statement: a monster collection aimed at the American market featuring aver a ...
Sly & The Family Stone: Lucifer Rising
Retrospective by Joel Selvin, MOJO, August 2001
THE ENGLISH TUDOR MANSION AT 783 BELAIR ROAD HAD BEEN built for Jeanette MacDonald, the Hollywood screen actress who starred in all those '30s operettas ...
John Lee Hooker: The Boogie Man
Obituary by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, August 2001
JOHN LEE HOOKER DIED peacefully in his sleep on June 21, 2001, two months and one day short of what would have been his 84th ...
Lucinda Williams: Even Cowgirls Get The Blues
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, August 2001
A HOT SUNDAY AFTERNOON. PEOPLE IN CUT-OFFS AND STETSONS sprawl along the banks of the Cumberland River, sucking beers, fanning themselves with stiff paper fans ...
Elvis Presley: Live In Las Vegas
Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, August 2001
ELVIS PRESLEY wasn't always the Clown Prince of Las Vegas. Back in 1956, he secured a two-week booking at the Venus Room in the city's ...
Temptations, The: The Temptations' Final Frontier
Retrospective and Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, August 2001
MOTOWN KING BERRY GORDY was royally miffed. None of his subjects could come up with a hit for the act many considered the finest in ...
Electric Light Orchestra: The Bullring Variations: ELO
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 2001
APRIL 20, 2001. The fat drops of rain falling on New York cannot dampen the anticipation that’s crackling along this usually quiet side-street. Here stand ...
Booker T & The MGs: The Backroom Boys: Booker T & the MGs
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 2001
IF EVER THERE WAS a piece of music that deserved the epithet "timeless", it’s Booker T. & the MGs’ ‘Green Onions’. The most basic of ...
Obituary by Fred Dellar, MOJO, September 2001
HE WASN'T the most accomplished guitarist in country music. There were those in Nashville who could fashion half a dozen great licks in the time ...
Doors, The: Jim Morrison: Death On The Instalment Plan
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, MOJO, September 2001
JIM MORRISON LAY IN A BATHTUB FULL OF WATER drawn from the same mystic spring that fed Brian Jones's swimming pool. The flesh over his ...
Doors, The: The Doors: Dead Cat Bounce
Retrospective and Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, September 2001
CITY OF LIGHT OR CITY AT NIGHT? It is 1968, maybe '69, and we are walking through the throngs of people crowding the Sunset Strip. ...
Spiritualized, Spacemen 3: Spiritualized: Run Silent Run Deep
Retrospective and Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, October 2001
Others lost their heads, but Spiritualized's Jason Pierce stuck to his vision. Keith Cameron unravels 10 years of hedonism, hard graft and betrayal. ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 2001
IT'S BEEN a long time since Bob Dylan released two consecutive albums of top-drawer original material – probably as far back as 1975's Blood On ...
T. Rex: T.Rex: Electric Warrior
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, October 2001
REMEMBER LITTLE Richard's immortal comment on the tragic trajectory of Elvis Presley? That wonderful epigram – "he got what he wanted, but he lost what ...
Hope Sandoval, Mazzy Star: Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions: Bavarian Fruit Bread (Rough Trade)
Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, October 2001
Former Mazzy Star star buddies up with MBV drummer Colm O'Ciosoig for full-length follow-up to last year's EP At the Doorway Again. ...
Van Morrison: Nothin' But A Stranger In This World: Van Morrison and Astral Weeks
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 2001
THE FITFUL BRITISH SUMMER of 2001 is ending not with a whimper but a bang – a burst of Bank Holiday heat that's got everyone ...
Profile and Interview by Angus Batey, MOJO, November 2001
Lightning banjo picker Earl Scruggs was there at the birth of bluegrass. Over half a century later he's back with a new album and a ...
Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, November 2001
THERE ARE winners and losers in the shifting sands of rock fashion and, much as it hurts to write it, Jefferson Airplane seem like losers. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, November 2001
IT CAN ONLY HAVE BEEN WITH A certain sense of foreboding that Dave Gilmour officially joined Pink Floyd on the first day of January 1968. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, December 2001
AS ANYONE FAMILIAR with the Motown fairytale can tell you, it was Diana Ross who discovered Michael Jackson. She was performing at a 1968 fundraiser ...
Charley Patton: Screamin’ and Hollerin’ the Blues (Revenant)
Review by David Dalton, MOJO, December 2001
HIS PEERS weren’t exactly trying to flatter him when they called him a rascal, a drunkard, a clown, a squabbler, a glutton, and hustler of ...
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, December 2001
FOR A FEW SEASONS as the '60s turned into the '70s, Creedence Clearwater Revival were the biggest band in the world, with their incredible US ...
Pink Floyd: Echoes – The Best Of
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2001
GLOOMY BUGGERS, the Floyd. War, death, bitter childhood, alienation, indoctrination, madness, greed, vicious animal husbandry, imprisonment, old age and, inevitably, death. Hi ho, it's off ...
Mel Brown: Whaddya Mean You've Never Heard Of… Mel Brown?
Retrospective by James Maycock, MOJO, 2002
"WITH THE GUITAR outselling all other musical instruments today," declared a Down Beat editor confidently in 1967, "it's good to have Mel Brown around to ...
Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, MOJO, 2002
JOHNNY OTIS, the renaissance man of rhythm and blues, is somewhat ambivalent about entering his ninth decade. "I have two kinds of feelings," he concedes. ...
Elvis Costello: My Aim Is True/Blood & Chocolate/Brutal Youth
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, January 2002
One more time: Elvis's rockest creations in 2CD editions, each with a bonus disc featuring material available on earlier reissues, plus previously unreleased demos. ...
Grateful Dead: The Golden Road (1965-1973)
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, January 2002
Mammoth 12-CD overview of Haight-Ashbury's finest, featuring improved sound, thorough annotation, extra tracks and hidden bonuses. All together: "Shall we go, you and I, while ...
Ray Charles: The Definitive Ray Charles
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, January 2002
Forty-six tracks from 48 years – 40 of which are from the '50s and '60s, but them's the breaks – a definitive encapsulation of a ...
Ike Turner, Jackie Brenston: 'Rocket "88"' and the Birth of Rock & Roll
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, James Maycock, MOJO, February 2002
AND GOD SAID, Let There Be Rock'n'Roll... ...
Beach Boys, The, Brian Wilson: The Legend of Smile
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, February 2002
"Smile is the name of the new Beach Boys album which will be released in January 1967, and with a happy album cover, the really ...
Brian Wilson, Beach Boys, The: Brian Wilson: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2002
Brian Wilson and 10-piece band perform, from start to finish, the album that topped MOJO's 100 Greatest Albums Of All Time poll, plus career-encompassing opening ...
Bob Dylan, George Harrison: George Harrison et al: Concert for Bangla Desh
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, March 2002
The first hi-profile multi-star benefit concert of the post-psychedelic era. Harrison, Dylan and Shankar strut their stuff alongside Clapton, Ringo and Leon Russell. ...
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2002
A year ago, Kurt Wagner was laying floors. Now his country-soul collective Lambchop have become Nashville's strangest success story ...
Smokey Robinson: 10 Questions for Smokey Robinson
Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, April 2002
Bill DeMain speaks to Motown's legendary songwriter and singer about Billy Eckstine, Marvin Gaye, school plays and positive rap. ...
Guide by Fred Dellar, MOJO, May 2002
A PERFORMER who personifies rock'n'roll, Louisiana's Jerry Lee is 'The Killer' – the wildman of the piano and the provider of a zillion headlines. ...
Marianne Faithfull With Special Guests: Only Connect Festival, Barbican, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2002
SHE SLINKS on wearing a black suit with impossibly tight trousers and smoking a cigarette. Four young men play 'Sex With Strangers' dry, cobwebby beat, ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, May 2002
NOT A DOUBLE but two individual albums, released at the same time. Your choice. There's Alice, skewed and drowsy, with wonky percussion and soft, smudged, ...
Band, The: The Band: The Last Waltz
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, May 2002
SIXTEEN YEARS, man.....Five years backing the Hawk; two more backing Bob Dylan, for Chrissakes. And then almost a decade on their own, a Band with ...
Association, The: The Association: Just the Right Sound
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2002
IN DECEMBER 1999, the American performing rights company, BMI, published a survey of the most air-played songs of the 20th century. Top of the list ...
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, May 2002
BEFORE WE go on, I'd like to apologise for the recent albums by Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney; just as a public service, because, Lord ...
Stone Roses, The: The Stone Roses
Retrospective and Interview by John McCready, MOJO, May 2002
ON FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1987, the greatest rock'n'roll band of the decade are playing to no more than 30 people at Planet X, a dark ...
Solomon Burke: Go On Back To Him
Report by Don Waller, MOJO, June 2002
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! "What's that noise in my earphones?" soul giant Solomon Burke calls into the studio control roost from the vocal isolation booth. "That's ...
Curtis Mayfield and Superfly: No Exit
Retrospective by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, June 2002
"THESE GUYS WERE LIKE outlaws, the real cowboys," says Phillip Fenty of the street characters who inspired his screenplay of Superfly. ...
Arthur Lee: 10 Questions for Arthur Lee
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 2002
On your recent US warm-up date you asked, "What did the monkey say after the pitbull bit off his tail?" ...
Flaming Lips: Oh, What A Beautiful Morning: The Flaming Lips kick back in Oklahoma
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 2002
APRIL 2002, OKLAHOMA CITY, the centre of the saucepan-shaped state at the heart of the USA. Oscar Hammerstein wouldn’t recognise the old place. Of corn ...
Monkees, The: The Monkees: Head
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, June 2002
"WHAT IS HEAD? HEAD IS THE most extraordinary adventure Western comedy love story mystery drama musical documentary ever filmed. And that's putting it mildly." ...
Stan Cornyn with Paul Scanlon: Exploding (Harper Entertainment)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 2002
"THE REALLY important factor was that we were a younger company than Columbia," Warners insider Stan Cornyn said in 1993. "We weren't structured so tightly ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, June 2002
UNPLUGGED IS one of Leon Russell's "least favourite terms in modern music". But unplugged, more or less, is what this is – recorded at the ...
Nina Simone: To Love Somebody/Here Comes The Sun/Emergency Ward/Black Gold/It Is Finished
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, June 2002
EUNICE WAYMON never intended to be a pop singer. Her ambition was to be the first great black female classical pianist. She took up playing ...
Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel 1, 2, 3 & 4; Plays Live; Birdy; So; Passion; Snaking The Tree; Us
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2002
FINE BODY of life's work remastered and reissued in "contemporised" Japanese-style mini vinyl die-cut gatefold sleeves. ...
Lovin' Spoonful, The: The Lovin' Spoonful
Retrospective by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, July 2002
IT IS MARCH 2000 IN NEW YORK and a number of friends and former business partners have gathered for dinner in a small room. It ...
Neil Young: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2002
DANGEROUS PLACE, Brixton. Neil Young figured he should alert the 4,300 fans who packed out his first night at the Academy that if he played ...
Live Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2002
THE PA IN THIS grim, dispiriting venue – outright winner of the industrial-estate self-storage-unit-impersonating-lkea-during-the-sales lookalike contest – has started, somewhat disconcertingly, to blare out 'Fanfare ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, July 2002
IT'S NOT a question much asked, but what if Messrs Page and Jones had managed to secure the services of their first choice, Terry Reid, ...
Elvis Presley: Today Tomorrow & Forever
Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, July 2002
LET'S BE honest: this, once again, is Elvis Presley '56-'77 squeezed into five exhilarating, and at times exasperating hours. There are two major differences this ...
Blasters, The: The Blasters: Testament: The Complete Slash Recordings
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2002
2-CD set featuring The Blasters (1980), Non Fiction ('83), Hard Line ('85) a covers EP and seven unreleased extras. ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Change Is Gonna Come
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, August 2002
BY 1966, IT LOOKED LIKE THE WAILING WAILERS WERE FINISHED ON the Jamaican music scene. They had recorded numerous hits, eventually challenging The Maytals as ...
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, August 2002
"THERE WAS so much I was told that was not real," Gene Clark croons on the haunting 'With Tomorrow', "so many things I could not ...
Flaming Lips: The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (WEA)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, August 2002
BACK IN February 1999, Wayne Coyne wrote of the soon-to-be-released The Soft Bulletin that, "in a strange reversal of musical universes, the more indulgent and ...
Skatalites, The: The Skatalites
Retrospective and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, August 2002
ASK JAMAICA'S PRIME MINISTER ABOUT THE SKATALITES and he'll come over all misty-eyed. Never mind that, at the moment, PJ Patterson is running a country ...
Stranglers, The: The Stranglers: Come and Join the Unruly Escapades
Retrospective and Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, August 2002
HANS WARMLING was fed up of life in the ice cream van. He'd come to England from his homeland of Sweden to play guitar and ...
MC5: The MC5: The Battle Of New York
Retrospective by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, September 2002
AS THEIR FLIGHT FROM DETROIT TOUCHED DOWN AT NEW York's LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, December 26, 1968, the MC5 figured they had the future by ...
Byrds, The, Roger McGuinn: Roger McGuinn: Twelve-string Driven Thing
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, September 2002
THE OPENING JINGLE-JANGLE 12-string Rickenbacker guitar line on The Byrds' 1965 classic, 'Mr Tambourine Man', ushered in a new era in popular music – the ...
John's Children, Marc Bolan: John's Children
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, MOJO, September 2002
IT'S BEEN SAID THAT IN 1967 MANAGER SIMON Napier-Bell served Marc Bolan with an ultimatum: join The Yardbirds or John's Children. The very idea of ...
Marc Bolan, T. Rex, Tyrannosaurus Rex: Marc Bolan: The Jurassic Years
Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, September 2002
IN DECEMBER 1967 The Observer devoted a large portion of its Sunday Colour Supplement to the London Underground. Complete with obligatory hip-speak glossary (an "A ...
Supergrass: Life On Other Planets (Parlophone)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, September 2002
After a three year pause, here’s their fourth album, produced by Tony Hoffer (Air, Beck) and largely recorded at Chris Difford’s Sussex studios. Released on ...
Simon & Garfunkel: Simon And Garfunkel: Live From New York City, 1967
Review by Chris Ingham, MOJO, September 2002
NEITHER AS gritty as Dylan or as political as Ochs or Baez, Simon And Garfunkel's folk-rock style had a cool, preppy awareness and an alluring ...
Who, The: The Who: My Generation
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, September 2002
The first legitimate CD release of The Who's epoch-making debut album, plus 18 tracks cut with their producer, Shel Talmy, in 1965 and early 1966. ...
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, September 2002
"BLOOD", "FIRE", "dust", "dark", "empty" – the same words keep recurring. Lights shutting out, black hole in the sun, buildings burning, that lonely desperation that ...
Review and Interview by Andria Lisle, MOJO, September 2002
CATEGORISING RICK James isn't as easy as one might think. Sure, he's the bad boy of black pop, a groove-minded funkster with a nasty attitude, ...
Rolling Stones, The: Rolling Stones: Shattered
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2002
FEBRUARY 1977. KEITH RICHARDS, SLEEPING like a baby, is being carried around his hotel room in the arms of a Canadian Mountie. There are other ...
Jackson Browne: Late For The Sky
Retrospective by Jaan Uhelszki, MOJO, October 2002
SINGER-SONGWRITER Jackson Browne delved deep into his soul for his third album, Late For The Sky. ...
Retrospective by Paul Gorman, MOJO, October 2002
FOR MANY A PUNK CHANCER, CRED comes with claims of attending the Sex Pistols' brace of gigs at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in the ...
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2002
BETWEEN HIS spare solo debut Heartbreaker and last year's swaggering Gold – the one where he sounded like he'd swallowed a jukebox of Stones, Who ...
Peter Gabriel: Gods And Monkeys
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2002
Gabriel's long-awaited follow-up to '92's US. Musicians include Peter Green, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Daniel Lanois and Nusrat Fatch All Khan. ...
Carter Family, The: The Carter Family: Into The Valley
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2002
FIRST KILL YOUR HOG. SKIN IT, singe off the hairs and leave the hide to soften. Tug it over a round frame, whittle out a ...
Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys, The: Dennis Wilson: The Lonely Sea
Retrospective by Ben Edmonds, MOJO, November 2002
WITH TIME TO KILL BEFORE SOUNDCHECK ON A windy New York afternoon in 1971, the drummer of The Beach Boys had decided, on a whim, ...
Beatles, The: The Death of Brian Epstein
Retrospective by Jim Irvin, MOJO, November 2002
THERE'S A story, probably apocryphal, concerning John Lennon during his infamous 'lost weekend', the period in the mid-'70s when he split from Yoko and devoted ...
Jeff Beck, White Stripes, The: Jeff Beck, The White Stripes and friends: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, November 2002
THE SHORT version: Jeff Beck is still the champ. The long version: American humorist Fran Lebowitz once wrote words to the effect that vegetables do ...
Debbie Harry, Blondie: 10 Questions for Debbie Harry
Interview by Edward Helmore, MOJO, November 2002
WHEN YOU FIRST came to New York in the late '60s you worked as a waitress at Max's Kansas City. An eye opener? ...
Raspberries, The: The Raspberries: Rebirth Of The Cool
Guide by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, November 2002
Who are they? The inspired combination of two of Cleveland's finest unsung rock bands of the late '60s – Cyrus Erie and The Choir – ...
Jackson Browne: The Naked Ride Home
Review and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, November 2002
WHILE MOST of his coked-out Californian contemporaries were mapping every last detail of the geography of their navels, endlessly rhyming "illusion" with "confusion" for consumption ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Forty Licks
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 2002
HERE'S AN album with something for everyone. For Virgin/EMI it's a shot at a Beatles 1-style blockbuster to prop up sagging third-quarter figures. For newbies ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Remasters Series
Review by Jon Savage, MOJO, November 2002
IN A ROCK ERA where back catalogue is king, The Rolling Stones have hitherto been ill-served by their servants. Their one-time peers The Beatles have ...
Bob Dylan: Just Bend Your Mind A Little…
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 2002
BOB DYLAN WAS NOT THE FIRST SONGWRITER to write about – or under the influence of – drugs, though you could be forgiven for assuming ...
Retrospective by Andria Lisle, MOJO, December 2002
"SOMETHING TOLD ME IT WAS OVER/When I saw you and here talking/Something deep down in my soul said, 'Cry, girl'/When I saw you and that ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: The Last DJ *****
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2002
BUSINESS AS usual for Petty is a decent business: good melodies, fat, ringing acoustics, his occasionally Dylanish delivery with those little lifts or drops at ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2002
SO, IT CAME to pass, George Harrison bookended his solo years with his two best albums. Brainwashed is a mature and often profound record, comprising ...
Johnny Cash: The Man Comes Around (American Recordings)
Review by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, December 2002
WEIGHTED DOWN by the difficult circumstances behind its recording – illness, hospitalisations, two bouts of pneumonia this past year alone, speculation that the increasingly fragile ...
Allman Brothers Band: Southern Men: The Long Tall Saga of the Allman Brothers Band
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, December 2002
"THIS AIN’T NO fashion show," Duane Allman liked to say. "We came here to play." It was a mission statement that summed up what his ...
Report by Paul Gorman, MOJO, 2003
THE UNEARTHING IN central London of a series of stunning images of rock icons from the early ‘70s has sparked a search for a mystery ...
Beatles, The: Get It Better: The Story of Let It Be… Naked
Report and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 2003
Is it getting back to 'Get Back'? Is it Let It Be exorcised of Spector? Is it the record it always should have been? ...
Isaac Hayes: 10 Questions for Isaac Hayes
Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, 2003
DO YOU remember your first week at Stax? ...
Strokes, The: The Strokes: Room On Fire (Rough Trade)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 2003
SOON AFTER HEARING it for the first time, I decided that The Modern Age EP was perfect, a marvel of compressed energy, three thrilling songs, ...
Ray Charles: 10 Questions for Ray Charles
Interview by Bill DeMain, MOJO, January 2003
Meeting Nat Cole, crafting genius songs on the spot and tips on sartorial cool. Bill DeMain gets the word from the emperor of soul. ...
Jeff Buckley: They Don't Even Know Me Yet
Interview by Martin Aston, MOJO, January 2003
In 1992 Jeff Buckley gave his first ever press interview. A decade later, MOJO unearths this incredible, little-seen document. ...
Roots, The: The Roots: Hip Hop Erudition And Wit
Profile and Interview by Angus Batey, MOJO, January 2003
"I'M ALIVE NOW!" BARKS AHMIR ?uestlove Thompson, drummer and de facto leader of Philadelphia hip hop band The Roots, and music press consumer of impeccable ...
Retrospective by Keith Cameron, MOJO, January 2003
Nirvana's metamorphosis from callow punk geeks to the globe-stomping rock phenomenon of Nevermind took little more than a year. In between lay a chaotic tale ...
Deep Purple: On The Roundabout With Deep Purple
Retrospective and Interview by Kieron Tyler, MOJO, January 2003
DEEP PURPLE were on top of the world in June 1973. 'Smoke On The Water' was climbing the US charts. They were news wherever they ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2003
Thirty-five years ago, ex-felon Johnny Cash was invited to perform in two of America's toughest prisons – one of which he was no stranger to ...
Review by Keith Cameron, MOJO, January 2003
4-CD stocking filler makes mischief with Mancunian pop visionaries' oft-compiled back catalogue. The 72-page booklet has band-written notes. ...
Denim, Felt: Felt/Denim: There Can Be Only One Lawrence — Meticulous Genius, Confounded.
Profile and Interview by Mick Houghton, MOJO, February 2003
IN 1986, WHEN Felt signed to Creation Records, stories quickly circulated about the oddness of the band's leader. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, February 2003
IN 2003 CARLOS SANTANA IS A GLOBAL SUPERSTAR ONCE AGAIN. BUT FOR OVER 20 YEARS, THE GUITARIST WAS CONDEMNED TO THE ARTIST’S WILDERNESS. DAVE DIMARTINO ...
Retrospective by Mike Barnes, MOJO, February 2003
"I THINK Jimi Hendrix was the best guitar player all round and one of the best musicians, creators and innovators I ever heard in my ...
Arthur Lee, Love: Arthur Lee: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, March 2003
AS ICONIC gestures go, Arthur Lee raising a tambourine above his head, arms angled like he's cradling an invisible water pitcher, is up there with ...
Lovin' Spoonful, The, Zal Yanovsky: Zal Yanovsky
Obituary by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, March 2003
ZAL YANOVSKY, to many the man who provided that special spark of magic in The Lovin' Spoonful, died of a heart attack on December 13 ...
Joe Strummer, Clash, The: Joe Strummer: Comrade, Goodbye
Memoir by Charles Shaar Murray, MOJO, March 2003
SOMETIME IN 1979, I WAS interviewing Joe Strummer for the NME in the Worlds End pub on the King's Road. As well as giving me ...
Pink Floyd, Roger Waters: Roger Waters: Off The Wall
Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, March 2003
To some, Roger Waters is the reactionary ogre who destroyed Pink Floyd. To many others, he's one of the few truly intelligent voices in rock ...
Libertines, The: The Libertines: England Expects
Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, March 2003
UNLESS YOU count the leaky ceiling, there is no running water in The Albion Rooms. A litre bottle of Evian has been decanted into the ...
Ozzy Osbourne: The Death of Randy Rhoads
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2003
"RANDY WAS my best friend," says Ozzy Osbourne. "He was also the greatest musician I have ever known. Back when we had no dough, we ...
Goldfrapp: Black Cherry (Mute) ****
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 2003
Second album from sultry singer/musician Alison Goldfrapp and musical partner Will Gregory. ...
Review by Keith Cameron, MOJO, March 2003
First new album of (mostly) self-penned material from Atlanta-raised Chan Marshall since 1998's Moon Pix. Features guest vocals from Bill Callahan and Eddie Vedder, plus ...
Be Good Tanyas, The: Be Good Tanyas: Chinatown
Review by Colin Irwin, MOJO, March 2003
Second album by the Canadian trio who seduced us with their disarmingly unassuming old-timey debut Blue Horse. ...
Evan Dando: Baby I’m Bored (Setanta)
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 2003
AS FRONTMAN OF the Lemonheads, Evan Dando displayed several striking talents: Writing deceptively plain songs that slipped beneath your skin and often concealed a profound ...
Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, April 2003
PACKING UP his gear after a recent gig in Dublin, Calexico's Joey Burns was approached by a young couple. Would you play at our wedding? ...
Townes Van Zandt: Wanderin' Star
Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, April 2003
What do you do when you're really down? Listen to Townes Van Zandt Sylvie Simmons charts the artistic triumphs and personal disasters of sadness's most ...
Jack Bruce: Songs For A Tailor/Harmony Row
Review by Rob Chapman, MOJO, April 2003
SEVERAL BLUE moons ago us MOJO contributors were asked to provide the mag with a list of our 30 all-time favourite LPs. My only real ...
Jefferson Airplane: The Summer Of Haight
Retrospective and Interview by Jeff Tamarkin, MOJO, April 2003
In January 1967, Jefferson Airplane were all set for take-off. But within months their dream was crumbling. Jeff Tamarkin on the destructive undercurrent to the ...
Led Zeppelin: Been A Long Time: Led Zeppelin
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 2003
EVEN NOW, after all these years of hairtree wannabes and idiot tribute bands, there's something so fierce and coruscating about Led Zeppelin in their prime ...
James Brown: Death Or Glory: James Brown In Vietnam
Retrospective by James Maycock, MOJO, July 2003
JUNE, 1968. Seven US Army lieutenant colonels - six Afro-Americans and one Caucasian - are collected from Tan Son Nhut, Saigon’s international airport, and ...
Profile and Interview by Pete Paphides, MOJO, August 2003
Depression, dysfunction and near-dissolution – Radiohead have spent the last few years in the wilderness. In a series of astonishingly intimate interviews, Peter Paphides charts ...
Bill Withers: Who Is He…( And What Is He To You)?
Profile and Interview by Don Waller, MOJO, August 2003
HE WAS 32 years old before he got his first record contract, with the Sussex label in 1970. He'd never played a live show. He ...
Memoir by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2003
Tracks and artists: Mississippi John Hurt: Candy Man/Coffee Blues/Stagolee. Brownie McGhee: Long Gone/Key To The Highway. Rev. Gary Davis: Samson And Delilah/I Won't Be Back ...
Elvis Presley: Sam Phillips: Rock'n'Roll Evangelist
Obituary by Andria Lisle, MOJO, September 2003
For Sam Phillips rock'n'roll was a religion And, boy, did he spread the gospel. ...
Steely Dan: 10 Questions for Steely Dan
Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, September 2003
Dave Di Martino talks to the venerable jazz-pop double act about sexual aids, Charlotte Rampling and perfectionism. Well, why not? ...
Cramps, The: The Cramps: Basic Instinct
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, September 2003
For the last 30 years The Cramps have remained the wildest rock'n'roll double act on the planet, a potent cocktail of lewd rockabilly, primeval fuzz ...
Beth Gibbons and Rustin’ Man: Out Of Season (Go Beat)
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, September 2003
First ‘solo’ album from Portishead’s singer, in collaboration with Paul Webb, formerly of Talk Talk, with additional input from Portishead colleague, Adrian Utley ...
Dixie Chicks, The: The Dixie Chicks: Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Interview by Andria Lisle, MOJO, October 2003
When they criticised President Bush's war, the Dixie Chicks went from being new country darlings to enemies of the state. Now they’re unlikely keepers of ...
Parliament, Funkadelic, George Clinton: George Clinton: Motor Booty
Retrospective and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, MOJO, October 2003
In 1963 George Clinton took a first step toward funk overlordship. He shut his East Coast barbershop and flew to Motown. Lloyd Bradley finds out ...
Retrospective and Interview by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, October 2003
They were America's biggest band. Live they outsold The Beatles. Then they sued their manager. Dave DiMartino charts the remarkable highs and ridiculous lows of ...
Ryan Adams: Rock'n'Roll (Lost Highway) ****
Review by Keith Cameron, MOJO, November 2003
Fourth solo album from erstwhile alt country poster-boy. Recorded in 13 days in New York with James Barber, aka Mr Courtney Love. ...
Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson: Brothers In Arms
Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, MOJO, December 2003
IN THE LATE afternoon of 4th April, 1968, Martin Luther King was shot through the neck on the balcony of Memphis' Lorraine Motel. Pronounced ...
Fleetwood Mac: Take it to the Limit
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2003
"GOD KNOWS all our lives are unimaginable without each other," mutters Mick Fleetwood, glancing speculatively from one old friend to another. It's a line you ...
Scott Walker: It Don't Come Easy: Scott Walker’s Five Easy Pieces (Universal)
Review by Mark Paytress, MOJO, 2004
Idiosyncratic. Inspired. Perplexing. Well, how else would you want your multi-disc "Godlike Genius" retrospective served? ...
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, 2004
SHORTLY AFTER HIS brilliant debut, Taylor declared his next album would be an even more ambitious blend of soul and West Coast pop, proper ...
Mars Volta, The: The Mars Volta
Interview by Stevie Chick, MOJO, March 2004
FORGET THE FIB your trusted history tomes have sold you: the evolution of rock music can't be charted as some clear linear progression, artist passing ...
Moondog: Ain't Nothin' But A Moondog
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, MOJO, March 2004
DURING APRIL, 1953, US DJ Sid Gross was in England attempting to arrange for a British band to visit the States in exchange for an ...
Beach Boys, The, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 2004
THE UBERFANS WITH medicated stares, the reverent fans who applaud Van Dyke Parks to his seat, the Smile scholars who have flown in from another ...
Nirvana's 'You Know You're Right'
Retrospective by Gillian G. Gaar, MOJO, May 2004
ON SATURDAY, September 21, 2002, Nirvana's 'You Know You're Right' was leaked on the internet. ...
Guide by Paul Gorman, MOJO, May 2004
MOD'S FASTIDIOUS nature dictates that the path between purism and pedantry is oft-trod. Were the Birds arty r&b enthusiasts, more allied to the scruffy Stones ...
Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, June 2004
MORRISSEY IS SICK. By his own estimation, he is sick of the sound of his own voice. In a suite at the Dorchester Hotel on ...
Smiths, The: The Smiths: No Time Like The First
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, MOJO, June 2004
Britain in the early '80s: New Romantics, pencil 'taches and Phil Collins. Then came The Smiths. The tale of their first ever gigs by Johnny ...
Shadows, The: The Shadows: Let's Go To Work
Retrospective and Interview by Bob Stanley, MOJO, June 2004
TONY MEEHAN, 15, is kicking his heels in Kilburn one late '50s afternoon when his friend Dave Rees suggests a trip to Soho. He may ...
Review by Andria Lisle, MOJO, June 2004
The Coal Miner's Daughter becomes a country music queen – with a little help from one of The White Stripes. ...
Isaac Hayes, Rufus Thomas, Staple Singers, The: Wattstax
Retrospective by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, July 2004
THE BIGGEST soul concert ever was about to end in a riot. ...
Jam, The, Paul Weller: Paul Weller: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2004
KEITH ALTHAM PR’d The Jam in the late '70s. In his book of post-retirement open letters to former clients, No More Mr Nice Guy, he ...
Roots, The: The Roots: The Tipping Point (MCA) ***
Review by Stevie Chick, MOJO, August 2004
Philadelphia freedom: A sixth album of adventurous, organic hip hop from the city of brotherly love. By Stevie Chick ...
Mark Lanegan: Death Valley Blues
Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, October 2004
MARK LANEGAN HAS JUST PUT THE unfiltered Camel to his lips when there's a knock at the door. It's his UK record company's PR. "I ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, October 2004
"HE COMES IN for coffee sometimes. Reads some poetry. They told me he was a musician. Tom Wait. Never heard of Tom Wait." Little Amsterdam's ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, October 2004
THEY WERE "CONCEPTS" all right, but that didn't make them the product of cool, analytical thinking. Back in the early '60s, Johnny Cash was wrestling ...
Antony & the Johnsons: Antony & The Johnsons: Islington Academy, London
Live Review by Paul Gorman, MOJO, January 2005
The extraordinary NYC androgyne - whose in-concert performances make Lou Reed cry - receives a stiffer-lipped but no less rapturous London reception. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, January 2005
MID JULY 2004. In the dark-wooded, rich red subterranea of San Francisco's Cafe du Nord a song is building off little more than a two-chord ...
Betty Davis: She's Gotta Have It
Retrospective and Interview by James Maycock, MOJO, February 2005
ONE EVENING during the high summer of 1967, the fragrant Miss Mabry left her Greenwich Village apartment situated in the S&M area of Bedford Street. ...
Johnny Thunders, New York Dolls: The First Punk: Johnny Thunders
Retrospective by Nina Antonia, MOJO, March 2005
FOR THE GENERATION of kids who became punks, the New York Dolls' appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test in November 1973 was an epiphany. ...
Retrospective by Kieron Tyler, MOJO, March 2005
FROM '50S TEEN idol to '60s folk singer, Bobby Darin never stopped packing a handful of startling singing careers into 15 short, debauched years. Not ...
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica (Straight, 1969)
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, MOJO, March 2005
A disciplinarian visionary and his inspired acolytes create genuine Outsider Art. ...
Boomtown Rats: The Boomtown Rats
Retrospective and Interview by Pete Paphides, MOJO, May 2005
LONDON 1978. Flushed with the vindication that comes with two hit singles, Bob Geldof has decided its time for payback. ...
Kraftwerk: 'Kraftwerk Are The Catalyst'
Interview by Simon Witter, MOJO, September 2005
The band's art guru and oldest friend, EMIL SCHULT, gives a view from inside the Kraftwerk project. As told to Simon Witter. ...
Retrospective and Interview by Simon Witter, MOJO, September 2005
2009 NOTE: This is a 9000-word "Director's Cut" version of a 5000-word piece written for MOJO in September 2005. ...
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 2005
TO SUM UP: Kate Bush is the greatest living British artist in song and this is her masterpiece. ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2005
IT OUGHT TO BE disconcerting that the toilet door is faulty and swings open of it's own accord catching MOJO in flagrante about to take ...
Neil Young: Prairie Wind (Reprise) ***
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2005
FACT SHEET• Back to Nashville and without Crazy Horse.• Recorded either side of his recent health scare. • First album of a long-term contract renewal ...
Devo: We're The Pits, or Punk Comes to LA
Retrospective by John Mendelsohn, MOJO, Spring 2005
THREE YEARS AFTER my group Christopher Milk -- signed to Warner Bros. and produced, rather poorly, by a famous English producer -- agreed that we'd ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: After Pepper
Essay by Jim Irvin, MOJO, Summer 2005
IT WAS APRIL 1967, the morning after The Beatles had completed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Zombies walked into Abbey Road Studios ...
Equals, The: The Equals: Hello/Goodbye
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Brewster, MOJO, 2006
The Equals were a groundbreaking multiracial pop group at a time of terrible racism. This is the story of how they came together in a ...
David Gilmour, Pink Floyd, Phil Manzanera, Robert Wyatt: David Gilmour: And This Is Me...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2006
STRINGS SHIMMER, a bowed double-bass growls, a saxophone sighs. Heads bowed before the sound desk, David Gilmour and his two engineers listen. Again and again ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 2006
IT WENT ALMOST unnoticed at the time, but in the midst of the big-haired pomp, regimented razzle and bloated clatter which characterised so much music ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, July 2006
THERE AREN'T too many singers who've been shot, stabbed, burst their pancreas, and had their right leg amputated at the knee. Fewer still whose career ...
Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd: Syd Barrett
Obituary by Rob Chapman, MOJO, September 2006
This is the full version of a piece that appeared in Mojo, September 2006 ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2006
Following Chronicles, the Martin Scorsese documentary and his satellite radio show Bob Dylan's stock in 2006 couldn't be higher. But it's been a long time ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2006
ON THE Friday night of September 23, 1966, former Animals bassist-turned-would-be-starmaker Chas Chandler, Animals road manager Terry McVay, and Jimmy (as he was then) Hendrix ...
Dexy's Midnight Runners: Dexys Midnight Runners: The Projected Passion Revue (Mercury) ***
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2006
NOBODY CRIED in 1981. Public displays of emotion weren't fashionable. The times demanded detachment, cynicism, or utter peacockery. ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Love (Apple)*****
Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2006
WE'RE NOT unsympathetic to readers who complain of Beatles fatigue, but we reserve the right to counsel: "Deal with it", because for a large section ...
Retrospective by Ian Gittins, MOJO, January 2007
BY THE END of recording Station To Station in Los Angeles in 1975, David Bowie was in meltdown. Strung-out, paranoid and at war with his ...
David Bowie: Bowie In America 1972/73
Retrospective by Ian Gittins, MOJO, January 2007
MORE THAN 30 years after the event, Ziggy Stardust remains one of the most inventive and flamboyant productions in rock history. Yet when Bowie took ...
George Martin, Beatles, The: George Martin
Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, January 2007
THE PENTHOUSE mixing room at the top of Abbey Road Studios. We await Sir George Martin, who is 30 minutes late. "This is most unlike ...
George Martin, Beatles, The: The Sound Of Sgt. Pepper
Retrospective and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, January 2007
THE RECORD ALWAYS regarded as a harbinger of pop's future is full of old-fashioned sounds. These are, in order of appearance: a theatre orchestra tuning ...
Beach Boys, The, Brian Wilson: The Beach Boys: The Making of Pet Sounds
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, January 2007
BACKSTAGE AT UCLA's Royce Hall a joyous sound suddenly erupts from behind a closed door, which one assumes leads to Brian Wilson's dressing room judging ...
Overview by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, March 2007
"I SAW THIS face looking up at me out of the trashcan. It was a woman. It looked like a flamenco dancer staring at me. ...
Rolling Stones, The, Ronnie Wood: Ronnie Wood
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2007
TO BE A Rolling Stone is a singular occupation. Last autumn, the phone rang at Ronnie Wood's Manhattan lodgings. Hello, it's Hillary Clinton. She said, ...
Stooges, The: The Stooges: Return To The Fun House
Retrospective and Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, April 2007
SCENES OF PRIMAL rock'n'roll hoopla are not the normal preserve of a Butlins holiday camp. Yet behind the stage of the Reds ballroom, next door ...
Sly & The Family Stone: Sly and the Family Stone: Bournemouth Opera House
Live Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, August 2007
YOU'RE A LIFE-LONG fan of a band that fell apart long before you were old enough to see them play. Suddenly, you hear that the ...
Profile by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, September 2007
PRINCE JUST stood the music industry on its ear again. You can tell because they're saying he's gone barmy, just like they did when he ...
Debbie Harry, Blondie: Debbie Harry
Profile and Interview by Lucy O'Brien, MOJO, October 2007
DEBORAH HARRY'S road manager is a tall Californian called Machine. He has a moustache, a firm handshake, and is ineffably polite. "Deborah will be with ...
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, November 2007
JULY 26, 1978: The Clash are on the third out of four nights at Camden's Music Machine during their chaotically-successful On Parole tour. Suicide, here ...
Led Zeppelin: John Paul Jones: The Quiet One
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2007
IN THE WORLD'S loudest group, John Paul Jones was the Quiet One. He never seemed to speak, and though he grooved, it was pressed up ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead
Retrospective by Dave DiMartino, MOJO, Summer 2007
WE ARE GETTING ahead of ourselves slightly, but we are in New York at the tail end of 1967, late December in the Village, in ...
Retrospective by Dave Thompson, MOJO, Summer 2007
IT'S PROBABLY heresy to say it aloud and there's several hundred Best Psychedelic Album In The World... Ever type compilations that can shoot the thought ...
Beatles, The: When Acid Reigned
Retrospective by Harry Shapiro, MOJO, Summer 2007
Hippies tripped, tabloids raged and police cheered as Engelbert Humperdinck's Jan '67 hit, 'Release Me' became the real theme tune for the Summer of Love. ...
Doors, The: The Doors' Summer of Love
Retrospective by Martin Aston, MOJO, Summer 2007
ED SULLIVAN has an awful lot to answer for. It's a delicious irony that the stiff-necked, neo-conservative host of The Ed Sullivan Show, the country's ...
Retrospective by Joel Selvin, MOJO, Summer 2007
ALL THROUGH the previous year, word filtered out of San Francisco about remarkable happenings and a strange new community of youths gathering around the city's ...
Beatles, The, George Harrison: George Harrison Visits Haight-Ashbury In Summer 1967
Retrospective by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, Summer 2007
UNCOMMON sightings were downright common in the Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love. But even in that colorful context, the visit of George Harrison to ...
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, Summer 2007
RELEASED AT the tail end of the summer of love, 'A Hole In My Shoe' was hailed by NME as "an incredible disc which you ...
Retrospective and Interview by Richie Unterberger, MOJO, Summer 2007
THE RELEASE of Big Brother And The Holding Company's self-titled debut album in the summer of 1967 should have been a highwater mark in both ...
Jimi Hendrix: Remade in Britain
Retrospective and Interview by Dave Thompson, MOJO, Summer 2007
DATELINE: LONDON, January 29, 1967. It was, if such archaic terminology could still be employed, the ultimate Battle of the Bands, trans-Atlantic style. ...
Retrospective by Kris Needs, MOJO, February 2008
SEPTEMBER 15, 1978, BIRMINGHAM. Blondie are on form tonight and they know it. Although the previous day's Manchester gig saw screaming adulation and post-gig mobbing, ...
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, February 2008
Not many would have dared step into Judy's ruby slippers and revisit her most celebrated concert, but this man did. Jim Irvin prepares to weep ...
Kid Creole & The Coconuts: Kid Creole
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, July 2008
JUNE 1982: The tall, dapper figure in the silver-grey zoot suit, two-tone shoes and white Panama hat stares at a TV screen in one of ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, August 2008
SOUNDCHECK. Not long now; the comeback gig's only three hours away. But they don't look nervous. Even when their faces appear in enormous close-up on ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2009
WILL OLDHAM could never make it as an Old Testament prophet. Despite the beard, the hair and the intensity, the atheism would always let him ...
Mott The Hoople: Teenage Riot!
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, May 2009
This is the complete, unedited version of the feature from Mojo, May 2009 ...
Billie Holiday: 'Strange Fruit' At 70
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2009
SEVENTY YEARS AGO this month Billie Holiday released 'Strange Fruit'; man's inhumanity to man made manifest in precisely three minutes, 12 scalding lines, inspired by ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2009
JUST 29 YEARS into Depeche Mode's evolution from hoppity-boppity three-minute wonders of Futurism to global phenomenon of electronic rock and here's sempiternal hit songwriter Martin ...
Seeds, The: Real Gone: Sky Saxon
Obituary by Kirk Silsbee, MOJO, September 2009
SKY SAXON, the colorful lead singer and sometime bassist of the Seeds, one of the great Sunset Strip bands of the 1960s, died June 25 ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys: Tom Petty
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2009
This is the full, uncut version of the piece that appeared in Mojo, October 2009. ...
Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2009
THE SMALL, GRIZZLED man in the check shirt indicated he'd like a cigarette. The small, curly-haired, young man sitting opposite handed him a Raleigh. The ...
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, December 2009
THE FALL IS A PRETTY comprehensive break-up album. Norah Jones has broken up with Lee Alexander, for eight years her boyfriend and double-bassist and, on ...
Kevin Coyne: I Want My Crown - The Anthology 1973–1980
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, January 2010
Four–disc appreciation of British singer–songwriterhood's best kept secret. ...
Peter Gabriel: Scratch My Back
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, February 2010
FOR MOST OF US, the prospect on paper of, quote, a "song exchange concept" between Peter Gabriel and a dozen other thinking-person's art-rockers old and ...
Mickey Newbury: An American Triology
Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, March 2010
He was the hottest songwriter in town. But when he made his own records, the world wasn't ready for songs of utter despair accompanied by ...
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2010
BABY, IT'S COLD OUTSIDE and everybody inside has their winter coats on too, even though 60 of us are crammed together in Sunderland's most bijou ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, May 2010
"WE DON'T shy away from the fire, us McGarrigle-Wainwrights," Rufus Wainwright laughs. "We're made of stern stuff." ...
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, May 2010
"I'VE GOT so much to do. All the music in the world," wrote Arthur Russell to a San Francisco friend after arriving in New York ...
John Hiatt, Little Village: Hello Goodbye: John Hiatt and Little Village
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2010
WE CONVENED at Ry [Cooder]'s house in Santa Monica. Set up some amps in a ground-floor room which opened out on to his garden. ...
Bob Dylan: 'Bob Knew There'd Be Butting Of Heads'
Retrospective and Interview by Michael Simmons, MOJO, July 2010
HOW DYLAN'S FIRST ALBUM OF ORIGINAL MATERIAL SINCE 1990 BECAME A WAR OF WILLS, AND AN ARTISTIC TRIUMPH. AS TOLD TO MICHAEL SIMMONS. ...
Bob Dylan: Izzy Young: The Man Who Made Bob Dylan
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, December 2010
NOVEMBER 4, 1962: Bob Dylan is invoking the time-honoured image of the out-of-town rambler lost on New York's convoluted subway system as he nervously attempts ...
Retrospective and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2011
A GOLDEN RICH GUITAR PHRASE pulses out warmth and beauty and Neil Young keens "I want to live/I want to give/I've been a miner for ...
Field Music: Work in Progress: Field Music
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, November 2011
THE BREWIS BROTHERS have worked away all year on (the provisionally-titled) FM4 and they're done bar tricky bits like naming the songs, which they fret ...
Todd Rundgren: The MOJO Interview: Todd Rundgren
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, January 2012
TWO DAYS AFTER a throat-shredding three-night stand at London's Jazz Café, Todd Harry Rundgren seems relieved merely to be talking. Still sporting multi-coloured – black ...
Tim Hardin: The Unforgiven: Tim Hardin
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2012
AS CONCEPT ALBUMS go it was one of the more eccentric creations of the late 1960s. The mouthful of a title alone (Suite for Susan ...
Johnny Cash: Out Of The Blue and Into The Black: Johnny Cash
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 2012
IT'S NOT EXACTLY boom-chicka-boom, but the twangy guitar part that kicks off Johnny Cash's 1971 album Man In Black is the same minimal single-string picking ...
Bruce Springsteen: Wrecking Ball
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, April 2012
THE WESTERN WORLD'S in economic grief and the poor get the dirty end of the stick. Er, Bruce? ...
Rufus Wainwright: The MOJO Interview
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, June 2012
WHAT WAS ON Rufus Wainwright's mind while making his new album, the sparkly, pop-ish, Mark Ronson-produced Out Of The Game? Only this. ...
Beach Boys, The: Hang On To Your Egos: The Beach Boys at 50
Retrospective and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, June 2012
NOTE: With a few minor differences, this was the piece that ran as a MOJO cover story in June 2012.* ...
Levon Helm, Band, The: Oh Brother Where Art Thou? The Night They Drove Ole Levon Down
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 2012
IN THE BACKWOODS gang that was The Band, Levon Helm was the lean and wiry chancer with one eye on the ladies and a voice ...
Band, The, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson: Garth Hudson on Levon Helm
Memoir by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, July 2012
"THE FIRST TIME I saw Levon in action was in Woodstock, Ontario, about thirty-five miles from London, where I grew up. Ronnie and the Hawks ...
back to LIBRARY
Best Databases: RBP is Runner-up in Best Niche category
Video: Johnny Marr talks about Rock's Backpages
download eBooks and audio interviews
RBP on Spotify: The Very Best of 40-year-old Virgin
RBP Album Club, June 13th: Miki Berenyi and Lucy O'Brien celebrate a Blondie classic
Essential Listening: Green Day grilled by Roy Trakin
RBP Album Club, July 11th: Nick Hornby and Nick Coleman celebrate Southside Johnny's debut
Essential Reading: Bud Scoppa's 1971 Byrds classic