Postpunk
John Cale: Paradiso, Amsterdam
Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, November 1975
EUROPE'S MOST DECADENT capital: inflatable paramours dangling like trussed chickens in the windows of the sex shops, hookers in their shop windows, the smack centre ...
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, November 1975
FIRST ALBUMS THIS good are pretty damn few and far between. ...
Interview by Vivien Goldman, Sounds, August 1977
WHO IS this, anyway?" Giovanni Dadomo demanded. "The Caligari Brothers?" Funny you should say that, my pasta-eating pal. ...
Magazine: This Man Is Not A Minor Writer!
Profile and Interview by Paul Morley, NME, October 1977
For a start he's dispensed with words! ...
Report and Interview by Danny Baker, ZigZag, February 1978
AH THE FALL! My mind fell on a quote that was all I knew of the name, something like '...there's hardly another band fit to ...
Magazine, Howard Devoto: Magazine: Howard Devoto's Enigma Variations
Profile and Interview by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, February 1978
HOWARD DEVOTO gives good face. Unlined and triangular, topped with a vast expanse of forehead; the kind that popular folklore maintains is the unmistakeable dead-giveaway ...
Profile and Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, March 1978
THROBBING GRISTLE: Drop that name in any conversation and watch the reaction. Giggling or nervous laughter, disgust or horror, blankness or a polite "Who?" Yeah, ...
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, March 1978
WHEN WIRE came out of the Punk No-man's-land with their strikingly different debut album Pink Flag they seemed one of the hottest hopes for lifting ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, May 1978
TO USE an alimentary analogy, punk can be seen as a kind of musical laxative, clearing away all that stodgy stuff that was blocking the ...
Throbbing Gristle: Industrial Paranoia: The Very Dangerous Visions Of Throbbing Gristle
Interview by Jon Savage, Sounds, June 1978
'All art aspires to the condition of musak.' 'Most of the people who disapprove of musak... but we are doing it for your own good!' ...
Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, June 1978
'I'm faking an extravagant journey, also it seems to me...' ...
Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, June 1978
I THINK it was the Jesuits of whom it was said they always answer a question with a question. Or maybe it was the Jews. ...
Alternative TV: The Image Has Cracked
Review by Paul Morley, NME, June 1978
MARK PERRY has been a confused person and, through that, confusing. ...
This Heat, Pop Group, The: The Pop Group/This Heat: Collegiate Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, July 1978
TWO SEEMINGLY unconventional, superficially 'bleak', jagged modern-music outfits. Both engineer music suggesting radical departure, still somehow quaint. ...
Profile and Interview by Paul Morley, NME, July 1978
MANCHESTER, 1977: the picture of a period stutters erratically to a docile completion. The picture is inconclusive, blotchy, but considering circumstances the best possible. ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, July 1978
THE NOW Society, a university-based organisation, has been putting on gigs featuring local, predominantly experimental bands (such are the local mores) for some time now; ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, August 1978
CABARET VOLTAIRE performances, if I can make a sweeping generalisation, are always interesting but never satisfying. Interesting because they're prepared to probe, often at the ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, August 1978
MAGAZINE, MYTHS AND MIRAGES ...
Joy Division: Band On The Wall, Manchester
Live Review by Paul Morley, NME, September 1978
THOSE FAMILIAR with this young quartet. mainly through their excitable appearance on the "Short Circuit" pretty package, and to a lesser extent with their self ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Sheffield – This Week's Leeds
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, NME, September 1978
UNTIL LAST YEAR, Sheffield was undoubtedly the most musically inactive city in Britain. For a city with over half a million people, the paucity of ...
Fall, The: The Fall: Marquee, London
Live Review by Paul Morley, NME, September 1978
I AM A commentator in a Consumers' Guide. This week I guide you towards entertainers The Fall, as I always have done. ...
Joy Division: Band on the Wall, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, September 1978
IT WAS during the unforgettable summer of '77 that I had my first encounter with Joy Division (then named Warsaw). Through a steamy Electric Circus ...
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, September 1978
"Well it's alright just listenCan't wait for 78God those r.p.m.Can't wait for themDon't just watchHours happenGet in there kidAnd snap them."– Wire, 'It's So Obvious' ...
Interview by Paul Rambali, NME, September 1978
PARDON ME if I've misunderstood, but amongst all those pretty speeches and petty let-downs didn't somebody once ask for 'new music night and day'? And ...
Live Review by Paul Morley, NME, October 1978
The Pop Group/Nico/Linton Kwesi Johnson/Cabaret Voltaire: Electric Ballroom, London ...
Cabaret Voltaire, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Pop Group, The, Nico: The Pop Group/LKJ/Nico/Cab Voltaire
Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, October 1978
Disorder by juxtaposition. Subversion by paradox. Nothing is as simple as we're told. New feelings. ...
pragVEC: Another Strange, New And Enticing Pop Group
Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978
A NEW extended play record to enthuse about. A new band to sell to you. Their name is pragVEC; the four tracks they've recorded are ...
Interview by Mick Middles, Sounds, November 1978
THROB,THROB, THROB, THROB. "Hey Miss, a bottle of Newcastle please, what? Oh, a bottle of Pils then." THROB, THROB, THROB, THROB. ...
Howard Devoto, Magazine: Howard Devoto: Calm And Confusion
Interview by Paul Morley, Ian Penman, NME, December 1978
WERE YOU a wimp at school?I wouldn't say I was a wimp. I think I did get bullied. ...
Alternative TV: A Different Kettle of ATV
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, December 1978
WHEN I FIRST mooted that I'd be interested in scribbling out a feature on Alternative TV, the thinking man's all-purpose unpunkgroup, the band's hustler and ...
Subway Sect, The: The Subway Sect: War Poet of The Modern World
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, December 1978
Old conceptions justifiedTradition stays in tuneYou make guitars talk informationThat tells you what to doThe lines that hit meAgain and againAfraid to take a strollOff ...
Public Image Ltd: Public Image
Review by Simon Frith, Melody Maker, December 1978
"I don't agree with bands who make records to please audiences." (Johnny Rotten.) ...
Throbbing Gristle: D.O.A. (Industrial)
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, December 1978
THE UNDERGROWTH OF pop...Take the mechanics of the situation as being something like this: you have a multi-million dollar industry, which has established channels whereby ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie and the Banshees
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, December 1978
"Have a competition in the NME. In less than a hundred words, what do they get out of Siouxsie and the Banshees?" (Siouxsie Sioux) ...
Interview by Chris Salewicz, NME, December 1978
JOHN LYDON lives in the upper maisonette of the end terrace of a row of sturdily built Victorian houses on the Fulham/Chelsea border. He picked ...
Live Review by Penny Reel, NME, January 1979
ON THE FIRST day of Christmas bondage bretheren and neon siteren children of the Rainbow – pace Aswad – left their parents' turkey tables en ...
Public Image Ltd.: Public Image Ltd. (Virgin)
Review by Kris Needs, New York Rocker, February 1979
THE EAGERLY-ANTICIPATED debut offering by Public Image Ltd. landed like a depth charge in the mire of self-congratulatory entrenchment that unfortunately bogs down much of ...
Mekons, The: The Mekons: Blows Against Individuation
Profile and Interview by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, February 1979
The Mekons insist they're just a by-product of confusion. But 'intervention', a.k.a. 'going commercial', looms. ...
Live Review by Paul Morley, NME, March 1979
RACE TODAY magazine/organisation, acknowledging the central importance of Manchester in the struggle of black people, launched their northern campaign with a fund raising "Creation For ...
Mekons, The: The Mekons: The Group Who Fell To Earth
Interview by Paul Rambali, NME, March 1979
THE MEKONS step down from the space ship of idealism and come face to face with Rock Reality. Can they and the cult of British ...
Pop Group, The: We Know There’s Something Wrong Somewhere: The Pop Group
Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, March 1979
This and other astute observations on life, art and the consumer society in THE POP GROUP interview. ...
Pop Group, The: The Pop Group: First Steps In The Primal Skank
Report and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, March 1979
Tribal customs live on, even in the era of Afterpunk. RICHARD WILLIAMS investigates The Pop Group. ...
Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, March 1979
AND THE STARS look very different today... For all practical rock purposes, we may as well own up that we are now living in the ...
Magazine, Buzzcocks, The: Howard Devoto: The Compleat Fatalist
Interview by Nick Kent, NME, April 1979
LATE THURSDAY afternoon. I am angry, very angry, for reasons that form too personal a tale but revolve around a head-on collision with hysterical illogicality. ...
Gang of Four: Dialectics Meet Disco
Essay by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, May 1979
This is the year of the second coming of British art-rock – although the new art-rockers won't admit it. MARY HARRON strips away the modish ...
Throbbing Gristle: The Factory, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, June 1979
WHEN I WAS watching Throbbing Gristle where were you? ...
Gang of Four: The Gang's All Here
Interview by Garry Bushell, Sounds, June 1979
...WELL ALMOST, AS GARRY BUSHELL DISCOVERS DURING A DRUNKEN DISCUSSION WITH THE GANG OF FOUR ...
Public Image Ltd: The Private Life Of Public Image
Interview by Danny Baker, NME, June 1979
WHAT TIME IS it? It feels like five in the morning but it must be a lot later. Ugh, Jesus, I must be inside my ...
Public Image Ltd.: The Factory, Manchester,
Live Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, June 1979
A Quick One While No-One's Thinking ...
Pop Group, The: The Pop Group: Idealists in Distress
Interview by Max Bell, NME, June 1979
They are young. They are talented. They are committed. They are now without a record company. 'So what seems to be the problem, boys?' asks ...
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures (Factory)
Review by Max Bell, NME, July 1979
JUST WHEN the year's vitality was threatening to be expunged by a non-stop parade of rehashed fashions, 'ordinary geezers' with French Riviera yachts and the ...
Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, July 1979
"To talk of life today is like talking of rope in the house of a hanged man." Where will it end? ...
Joy Division: Take No Prisoners, Leave No Clues
Profile and Interview by Paul Rambali, NME, August 1979
LET ME DRAW BACK the curtains on a probably wet and no doubt freezing night last winter. A mid-week night of no special significance, save ...
Mo-dettes, The: The Mo-dettes: Fast, Loud, Pretty
Profile and Interview by Paul Rambali, NME, August 1979
MET THEM ON A Monday, the Coca Cola spilt over the tape machine, and my MRX2 Oxide 45 mins each side @ 1 7/8 i.p.s. ...
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, September 1979
A movement with no name... and a festival with no people (But a 'staggering event' all the same, says our man Middles) ...
Live Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, September 1979
Angst in an East Lancs wasteland ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1979
FOR MUCH of This Heat's album, it's difficult and at times impossible to decipher which instrument is playing what. This is some indication of their ...
Review by Nick Kent, NME, September 1979
WIRE WERE from the very outset a conceptually intriguing collective, even though they bristled with a potential that was all too often offset by niggling ...
Gang of Four, Buzzcocks, The: The Buzzcocks, Gang of Four: Club 57, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, NME, September 1979
THIS IS AN interesting juxtaposition: Buzzcocks work on a high energy formula, a formula that works; Gang Of Four work away from formula – they ...
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Night Of The Long Knives
Report by Kris Needs, NME, September 1979
IT'S IRONIC that Siouxsie and the Banshees' latest album bears the title Join Hands when half the group just ran away two dates into their ...
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, September 1979
WRAPPED IN an abstract minimal geo-deco sleeve (all straight lines and waves, pastel shades), with its own label and a "free" 45, the third Wire ...
Gang of Four: Entertainment (EMI)
Review by Jon Savage, Melody Maker, October 1979
THE Four are ambitious; and so they accept the process. ...
Gang of Four: Entertainment! (EMI)
Review by Paul Rambali, NME, October 1979
ENVELOPED AS we seem to be by such backward times, Gang Of Four could hardly have picked a more awkward moment to foist their collectivist ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, October 1979
Wire don't sit comfortably in the publicity man's gullet. They're not easily categorised, seemingly spurning the hype-market. But they do conform in one way; they ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Mix Up (Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1979
WITH MIX UP, Cabaret Voltaire transcend being simply the blueprint for a genre – the drummerless synthesizer trio – and finally get down to business. ...
Adverts, The: The Adverts: Cast Of Thousands
Review by Paul Morley, NME, October 1979
THE ADVERTS, with unforeseen stamina, have substantially matured since their early days. No longer can technical inadequacy or limited vocabulary be criticisms – just the ...
Pop Group, The, Scritti Politti: The Pop Group, Scritti Politti: University Of London
Live Review by Nick Kent, NME, November 1979
THE TRADITION of the angry young idealist, full of righteous fervour, self-righteous condescension towards those at odds with his or her volatile beliefs, and a ...
Public Image Ltd.: The Metal Box
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, December 1979
FRIDAY EVENING in Chelsea and I'm looking for a house, panning the street on the odd numbers side. Nearly there and a door opens. Down ...
Skids, The: The Skids: A Loser's Quest For Survival
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, December 1979
"I'm going to lose. It's like admitting defeat before I start. But I'm going to do as much as possible in that period before I ...
Review by Paul Morley, NME, December 1979
ADAM AND The Ants and Throbbing Gristle are shadowy extremes, lurking in dark corners, lethargically scratching through their overscrubbed private parts, grinning sweetly at anyone ...
Fall, The: The Fall: All Fall Down
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, January 1980
JUST ABOVE my typewriter on the mantlepiece is an eye-catching tube of 10 orange flavoured effervescent tablets. Each tablet contains 1g orange flavoured concentrated Vitamin ...
Slits, The: The Slits: Hurrah, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, NME, January 1980
ANOTHER American debut of another new British band at Hurrah's. But this is New Year's Eve and the ticket is 25 bucks – probably a ...
Mekons, The: The Mekons: Manchester Polytechnic, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, February 1980
I COULDN'T believe my eyes. ...
A Certain Ratio: The Graveyard And The Ballroom (Factory) ****
Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, February 1980
A CERTAIN Ratio (currently the hippest combo in Manchester) typify the approach, style, feel, and idealism of Factory Records. They are distant, difficult to touch ...
Joy Division: Osbourne Club, Manchester
Live Review by Mick Middles, Sounds, March 1980
TO THE centre of the city in the night waiting for Joy Division. ...
Profile and Interview by Pete Makowski, ZigZag, April 1980
MY FIRST sojourn into the pages of this fine mag and what a balls up. Cock up amundo, mate. ...
8-Eyed Spy, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Lydia Lunch: Way Out West With 8-Eyed Spy
Report by Byron Coley, New York Rocker, May 1980
IF LYDIA LUNCH'S Queen Of Siam hadn't come out when it did, I'd probably still be freezin' my butt off in Ketchum, Idaho, a town ...
Public Image Ltd: Lydon In New York: The Image Goes Public
Interview by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, May 1980
IT IS TWO O'CLOCK in the afternoon, and John Lydon has just popped his third or fourth Heineken of the day. ...
Public Image Ltd.: PiL in Hollywood
Report and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Sounds, May 1980
HUDDLED ROUND the side with a crowd of disco dancers waiting for their fifteen minutes of fame, watching a fake Doobie Brothers run through their ...
Vic Godard, Subway Sect, The: Vic Godard: Young Existentialist
Interview by Mick Middles, Sounds, July 1980
VIC GODARD makes Feargal Sharkey look like Gene Simmons. His normality is outrageous. When Vic Godard sits in his bedroom listening to Peter Skellern on ...
A Certain Ratio: Failed CSE Rock!
Report and Interview by Paul Morley, NME, September 1980
WE LEAVE the grubby Hulme human hutch where some members of A Certain Ratio live. The view from this particular section of hutches is not ...
Echo & The Bunnymen, Delta 5, U2: Echo & Bunnymen, U2, Delta 5: The Lyceum, London
Live Review by Chris Salewicz, NME, September 1980
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN dwell in the magical land between life and art that is the territory of great rock'n'roll. Making music alone isn't enough ...
Comsat Angels: Miracle Workers
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, NME, October 1980
"MILKY WAY – the gig you can do between tours!" Steve Fellows, singer, guitarist and lyricist with The Comsat Angels is right. There's very little ...
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, October 1980
"THE TROUBLE with conversations like this," declares Pete, nodding sagely, knitting his eyebrows, as he refers to the complex peculiarities of a pop group who ...
Killing Joke: The Killing Of Brother Paul
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, November 1980
IF I HAD heard how Jaz had let Youth know that I'd arrived, I wouldn't have bothered with the interview. Photographer Ray Stevenson told me ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Welcome To The Bunnyhouse
Interview by Chris Salewicz, NME, November 1980
WHEN ECHO And The Bunnymen end their British tour with a date at Liverpool University, the Mad Hatter photographer (Joe Stevens) and I travel up ...
Slits, The: The Slits: And Lo, 'Three Wise Slits Take Their Temple To The West'
Report and Interview by Vivien Goldman, NME, December 1980
GAMES ON TRAINS ...
Profile and Interview by Paul Morley, NME, December 1980
LEMON SUCKING refers to the practice of sucking in the cheeks to affect the 'rock'n'roll' wasted look. Chewing, or neck bending, refers, I would suppose, ...
Interview by Kris Needs, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1981
John Lydon, Keith Levene and (a barely audible) Jeanette Lee on: the Flowers of Romance album; what was wrong with Wobble; Satin tour jackets; the Futurists & Steve Strange; problems with Virgin Records and more.
File format: mp3; file size: 41.2mb, interview length: 45' 01" sound quality: **
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, January 1981
MARK COOPER joins the AU PAIRS' campaign trail ...
Gang of Four: Gang Of Four: Solid Gold (EMI)
Review by Nick Kent, NME, February 1981
FINALLY GANG Of Four agree among themselves long enough to record a set of seven new songs, add on three already-released-in-some-other-form originals, come up with ...
Gang of Four: Gang Of Four: Solid Gold
Review by Van Gosse, Village Voice, April 1981
GANG OF FOUR called their first album Entertainment!, as if shouting from the rooftops that it wasn't. ...
Throbbing Gristle Makes L.A. Debut
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, May 1981
Throbbing Gristle: Veteran's Auditorium, Culver City, CA ...
Raincoats, The: The Raincoats: Odyshape (Rough Trade)
Review by Vivien Goldman, NME, June 1981
Revelations chapter II ...
Human Switchboard: Deft Mutants in a Telephone Booth: Human Switchboard at Walnut Hills, Dayton
Live Review by Richard Riegel, Creem, August 1981
DAYTON, OH -- "Maximum Occupancy: 110" says the sign high up on the wall of the Walnut Hills Bar, and by a conservative estimate, I'd ...
Aztec Camera, Josef K: Josef K, Aztec Camera: The Venue, London
Live Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, August 1981
WHEN I entered the Venue, I expected to be bestowed with an endless soul. I wasn't, but I got a ticket instead. A choice of ...
Scritti Politti: Where Radical Meets Chic: Scritti Politti
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, NME, October 1981
"SCRITTI POLITTI" – didn't you always wonder where their "political writings" were? I did. I always wondered whether their hearts were in their music or ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Birch, Smash Hits, November 1981
From the underground...To the charts? We want hits, say the former cult heroes. Quite right, says Ian Birch. ...
Scritti Politti: Suspicious Minds
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, December 1981
Making their way from the margins to the mainstream SCRITTI POLITTI have discovered the beauties of pop. But what took them so long? "Professor" MARK ...
Mekons, The: The Mekons Story (CNT) 1982
Sleevenotes by Lester Bangs, CNT Records, 1982
THE MEKONS are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock 'n' roll. They are also the finest artists ever to have graced this ...
Poison Girls: Total Exposure (xntrix)***½
Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, January 1982
POISON GIRLS' music doesn't tell you anything new. Barely evolved from the ugly end of punk it grinds or charges along with an oppressive grimness ...
A Certain Ratio: Sextet (Factory)
Review by Chris Bohn, NME, January 1982
THE A CERTAIN RATIO anatomy of melancholy breaks down to a curdling rattle of bones, distant whistles, a few whispered words and a trickle of ...
A Certain Ratio: Sextet (Factory Fact 55)
Review by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, January 1982
A CERTAIN JE NE SAIS QUOI ...
Pigbag: Dr Heckle And Mr Jive (Y)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1982
THE ACREAGE of cloth in Pigbag's collective trousers has been measured and, I'm afraid, found wanting. This is, apparently, an issue of some importance in ...
Fall, The: The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour (Kamera)
Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, March 1982
OF COURSE, YOU don't actually review a Fall LP. You hover in the shadow of the aura and attempt to catch some of the sparks ...
Fall, The: The Fall: Hex Education
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, May 1982
COINCIDENCE AND surprise save the world from going flat! Like, the same issue of Artforum which boasts that superb Laurie Anderson flexidisc also has an ...
Gang of Four: Songs Of The Free (EMI)
Review by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, May 1982
AND SO the most highly-evolved piss artists in "rock" came to release their third LP. ...
Scritti Politti: The Sweetest Groove
Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, May 1982
Everything's gone GREEN, the voice of SCRITTI POLITTI tells Lynden Barber ...
Cabaret Voltaire: 2X45 (Rough Trade)
Review by Richard Cook, NME, June 1982
WHAT IS least novel – and perhaps least satisfying – about the ascendancy of synthi-pop is its dependence on romantic humanist elements. Kraftwerk's love of ...
23 Skidoo — Don't Play Funky For Me!
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, NME, June 1982
"You see, the people who constantly listen to pop have their ears degraded by wrong style and reiteration, senseless reiteration..."– Unity Mitford, taped on 'Porno ...
Rip Rig and Panic: Rip Rig & Panic
Interview by Richard Cook, NME, June 1982
"OH NOOOO! Look at this one! Look at Springer's head!" ...
Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, June 1982
HOW COULD they have known? The caption under the BBC1 column in the Sunday Times television listings for May 30 was unmistakeable. "6.10. Sense And ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, June 1982
"THERE'S 70 million people on earth." "Where are they hiding?" ...
Interview by Mark Cooper, Record Mirror, July 1982
Mark Cooper throws a few questions at the brand new Pigbag ...
Live Review by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, July 1982
THIS IS ALMOST another case of "eat thy words", hard on the heels of Allan Jones' revelatory viewing of the Stones at Wembley. I didn't ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Melody Maker, July 1982
UNDER THE nuclear shadow, something stirs. Looking west, it decides to reject the old men's fear and guilt. If the sands of time are turning ...
Review by Cynthia Rose, NME, August 1982
TIME FOR another recharge from my choice in chutzpah-driven indies: Neil ‘Let’s Get This Party Started’ Cooper’s Reach Out International Records (ROIR). Former booking agent ...
Scritti Politti: Songs To Remember (Rough Trade)
Review by Charles Shaar Murray, NME, September 1982
HERE IT IS: Scritti Politti's greatest hits. Let me assure you that this isn't a problem (I like albums with lots of singles on) and ...
Psychic TV: Force The Hand Of Chance (Some Bizzarre)***
Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, November 1982
IMITATING COUNTLESS gurus before him, Genesis P-Orridge embarks here and now on a cynical and puerile journey to the heart of pantomime profundity, stopping at ...
A Certain Ratio: I'd Like To See You Again (Factory)
Review by Leyla Sanai, NME, December 1982
I REALLY wanted to love the new A Certain Ratio LP. After countless plays I've accepted it's not going to click the way I'd hoped. ...
Elvis Costello: The Palladium, New York
Live Review by Iman Lababedi, Creem, December 1982
IT HAD been 10 months since I last saw Elvis Costello; in between I'd watched him play footsie with Tom Snyder, straight man to George ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, NME, April 1983
Maniac cab driver Chris Bohn takes you on a ride to the terminal zone with the New Zealand / Chinese alliance called SPK ...
Review by Cynthia Rose, NME, April 1983
THE LATEST trio of ROIR cassettes expands the label's category of historical documentation – a division which offers some excuse for the fact that Reachout ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Taxi To The Terminal Zone
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, July 1983
"The way I see it is capitalism's a sponge – consider yourself to squeeze it. Squeeze it while it's here, be prepared to pick up ...
Report by Mick Middles, Sounds, July 1983
"How I wish you were here with me now." – New Order, 'In A Lonely Place' ...
Review by Mat Snow, NME, September 1983
THESE DAYS the barricades are thinly manned. Back in '79 Rock was Against Everything and The Gang Of 4 provided a soundtrack of surgical firepower ...
Interview by Blake Gumprecht, Alternative America, Winter 1983
COMING TOGETHER in Boston four years ago, Mission of Burma's first single, 'Academy Fight Song', was released by Ace of Hearts a year after the ...
Gang of Four = Hard Men in Good Cars
Profile and Interview by R.J. Smith, Creem, March 1984
"All we have in common is the illusion of being together. And the only resistance to the illusions of the permitted painkillers come from the ...
Scritti Politti: Say A Little Prayer For Green
Interview by Richard Cook, NME, March 1984
DEEP END, feet first. Is it true you're Mr Paranoid? ...
Public Image Ltd: PiL: This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get (Virgin)
Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, July 1984
JUST when you thought you had the bugger pinned down as a spent force, a wasted opportunist and black and white photocopy of a colourful ...
Public Image Ltd.: This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get (Virgin)
Review by Biba Kopf, NME, August 1984
DEAR JOHN, the big kiss off: ...
Interview by Richard Kick, ZigZag, October 1984
THE THOUGHT was: as a concise introduction into the idea of 23 Skidoo I would write a short piece about Fritz Hamaan. ...
Cabaret Voltaire: Rock With The Digital Cavemen
Interview by Richard Cook, NME, November 1984
AS ONE Voltaire remarks, it's good weather for journalism: weary skies stuffed with rainclouds over Sheffield and its hills. After London the gentle pace of ...
Durutti Column, The: The Durutti Column: Without Mercy (Factory)
Review by Martin Aston, Melody Maker, December 1984
SO MUCH contemporary music strives to conquer eager hearts and incite itchy feet with bombastic crescendoes and prolific sloganeering, substituting the possible with the obvious, ...
Shriekback: Funk's Fictional Threat
Essay by Simon Reynolds, Monitor, March 1985
1985, AND A GAGGLE of groups plough a well-furrowed, increasingly barren field. ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, NME, June 1985
THE TWO singers, a tall fresh-faced Welshman and a soft spoken bleary-eyed Mancunian, felt trapped. ...
John Lydon, Public Image Ltd: John Lydon: This Is What You Get
Interview by Paul Morley, NME, February 1986
THIS IS the beginning of an interview with the John Lydon who has drunk seven cans of Red Stripe lager, after breakfasting on oysters. ...
Public Image Ltd: John Lydon: Apocalypse New
Interview by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, May 1986
SOMEBODY told me John Lydon liked a drink. And this was indeed a large crumb of comfort. Suddenly, it was possible to establish some common ...
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, January 1987
No other group creates such extreme reactions as SWANS. For some, they are a bunch of American charlatans making the worst noise in the world; ...
Happy Mondays, Fall, The, Bodines,The: The Fall/The Bodines/Happy Mondays: International, Manchester
Live Review by John Robb, Sounds, May 1987
STRANGE HOW, these days, any gathering of vaguely well known groups always makes you think of charity and polished consciences. But tonight seemed to be ...
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, June 1987
Or timeless as ever? Only time will tell, say WIRE, back with An Ideal Copy and not a hint of retrogression anywhere. Seconds clocked by ...
Public Image Ltd: John Lydon: I Cry Alone
Interview by Jack Barron, NME, October 1987
DAY-GLO PINK mini-dreads erupt from his scalp like antennae made of candyfloss. Iceberg blue eyes stare from cigarette ash skin. A smirk. A belch of ...
Scritti Politti's Green (1988)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1988
Scritti's Green talks about making Provision, meeting Jacques Derrida, working with Miles Davis, Roger Troutman and Chaka Khan, hanging out with Kraftwerk and struggling to come up with an album title...
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 55meg, total interview length: 1 hour, sound quality: ****
Public Image Ltd: Public Image Limited: Happy? (Virgin)
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, February 1988
TEN YEARS ago he was burying Led Zepplin; now he's praising it. Such are the artistic swings from Johnny Rotten (ne Lydon), professional iconoclast. Not ...
Public Image Ltd: PiL in Estonia, part 1 (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1988
Live Aid? Bollocks! Mat Snow battles the airport tannoy to hear pearls of wisdom from John Lydon and band.
File format: MP3 File size: 16.1 mb<br> Interview length: 23 minute 47 seconds Sound quality: ***
Scritti Politti: That Obscure Object of Desire
Interview by Stuart Maconie, NME, August 1988
THE MEPHISTO of sophisto, GREEN GARTSIDE, and his slightly cool vehicle SCRITTI POLITTI have once more pulled into view with their new single 'First Boy ...
Pere Ubu: The Picturesque Sound of Pere Ubu
Profile and Interview by Don Snowden, Los Angeles Times, September 1988
IS THE ROCK world finally ready for Pere Ubu? The critically acclaimed sextet from Cleveland, which finishes a two-night stand at Club Lingerie tonight – ...
Fall, The: The Fall: The Praxis Of Punk
Essay by Tim Riley, Boston Phoenix, April 1989
Why The Fall continue to rise ...
Public Image Ltd, John Lydon: John Lydon: …Heeere's Johnny!
Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, July 1989
IN THE BAR OF the North London rehearsal studio complex, John Lydon, wearing a typically loud shirt, a pair of unorthodox dark spectacles and the ...
Joy Division, Tony Wilson: Division On: Joy Division
Interview by Len Brown, NME, May 1990
"FUNNY. I WAS IN the car with Barney the other day and I just hit Unknown Pleasures into the CD. And Barney shouted, 'Get that ...
Psychic TV: In Thee Oblique Midwinter
Interview by Mark Sinker, City Limits, December 1990
JUST LIKE a dilemma, present-day Paganism has two horns: the old lore and its new form. Except it isn't always entirely clear whether those horns ...
Gang of Four: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century (Warner Bros.)
Review by Tom Graves, Rock and Roll Disc, February 1991
IF YOU HAPPEN to own a copy of The Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, you can open it to just about any page, ...
Fall, The: Mark E Smith: Not Falling, Soaring
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1991
MARK E SMITH'S REPUTATION precedes him like massed stormtroopers on the horizon. Fourteen years on, the Fall frontman still sets everyone on edge, either in ...
Fall, The: The Fall: Code Selfish (Cog Sinister)
Review by Dele Fadele, NME, March 1992
"THOUGH PROUD of the way I've avoided prison.../When the cell door slams/I walk to the wall.../These are the words of success expectation/These are the words ...
Cabaret Voltaire's Record Collection
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1992
Spookily delayed trumpets, primitive drum machines, bone-shaking bass, the original "bleep" record, loads of Germans and "Elvis gone wrong". Earplugs at the ready, Andy Gill ...
Fall, The: The Fall: 15 Years Of Fame
Interview by Carol Clerk, Melody Maker, May 1993
THERE'S SOMETHING TREMENDOUSLY reassuring about the fact that The Fall, and Mark E Smith, exist. ...
Joy Division: The Making Of Unknown Pleasures
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, November 1998
Joy Division settle into 10cc's Strawberry Studios in Stockport to record one of the greatest albums of the 70s. But Ian Curtis has just discovered ...
Public Image Ltd: PiL: Three's Company…
Retrospective by David Stubbs, Uncut, January 2000
David Stubbs takes a shine to the mesmerising remorselessness of PUBLIC IMAGE LTD's post-punk Metal Box... ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2000
THE CROWD ARE ALREADY PRETTY fired up when the steamingly drunk weirdo trapped in flashing fairy lights tosses his guitar into the audience. This is ...
Profile by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 2000
IAN CURTIS has amassed more disciples since his death 20 years ago than he ever attracted as singer with Manchester post-punk legends Joy Division. ...
Magazine: Maybe It's Right to Be Nervous Now (Virgin, 3CDs) ****
Review by Keith Cameron, Guardian, The, September 2000
FOLLOWING AN initial period of liberation, punk, like all revolutionary forces, soon substituted new orthodoxies for those it had blown apart. ...
Magazine, Howard Devoto: Howard Devoto: Shot By Both Sides
Interview by Paul Morley, Uncut, November 2000
AND THEN, in 1976, when Howard Devoto was 24, he wrote and recorded four fast songs with the group Buzzcocks, and they became the EP ...
Retrospective and Interview by Bill Brewster, Jockey Slut, 2001
"What man is at ease in his Inn?Get out.Wide is the world and cold.Get out.Thou hast become an initiate.Get out."Aleister Crowley – 'Skidoo', chapter 23 ...
23 Skidoo: Seven Songs, Urban Gamelan
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, November 2001
Audacious avant-funksters re-released ...
Scritti Politti: Everything's Gone Green
Retrospective by David Stubbs, Uncut, December 2001
David Stubbs on Scritti Politti's subversive pop-soul masterpiece, Songs To Remember ...
Specials, The: The Specials: Reissues
Review by Simon Reynolds, Uncut, May 2002
Digitally remastered and enhanced with two videos per disc, the Sound Of Young Coventry before The Streets ...
Interpol: Turn on the Bright Lights
Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, August 2002
I FIND SOMETHING terribly tragic about Interpol. It's more than Paul Banks' elegiac vocals, which stir my gut every time I hear them, so much ...
New Order: Move Festival, Old Trafford Cricket Ground, Manchester
Live Review by Rob Hughes, Uncut, September 2002
SINCE SETTING aside old bones of contention four years ago, New Order's Indian summer has seemed one long, breathless, last-skitter-of-the-dice party. ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, 2003
AH MANHATTAN, so much to answer for – and so in vogue as a rock metropolis after decades as a Hip Hop Mecca. Yes New ...
Public Image Ltd.: Full Metal Jacket – Metal Box
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Fact, January 2004
With the curtain closed on the Sex Pistols pantomime, in 1978 a still-searing John Lydon teamed up with Jah Wobble and Keith Levene to form ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2004
THEY CALLED it rock, and boy, did Britain’s Rockpile rock-brashly, boozily, and in one regard, too, belatedly. ...
Three Johns, The: Three Johns: Dada for now
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, September 2004
NOWADAYS, The Three Johns are often recalled as a side project of Mekons/Waco Brothers instigator Jon Langford. But during their 1982–91 tenure, the hard-rocking 3Js ...
Essay by Michael Baker, Perfect Sound Forever, November 2004
IV. Pere Ubu: Christ's Agony, Cabarets, and Scary Movies ...
Gang of Four: The Gang's All Here – Again
Retrospective and Interview by Robert Sandall, Daily Telegraph, January 2005
LIKE THE VELVET Underground a decade before them, Gang of Four were one of those bands who never had a proper hit but who created ...
Gang of Four: Irving Plaza, New York NY
Live Review by Jason Gross, Harp, May 2005
IN 1977, A bunch of British university students formed a band, poignantly deciding to take the name of a group of disgraced communist leaders accused ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, July 2005
TWO SPOTLIGHTS of solar-white intensity arc downward, one aiming stage left, the other to the right. A sudden jerk of the guitar from the illuminated ...
John Lydon: John Rotten Lydon in a Few Words
Essay by Glenn O'Brien, V-Man, Spring 2005
OKAY, JUST THINKING about him, I got a powerful yen to listen to John Lydon's music and as the vinyl's all out at the country ...
Book Excerpt by Linsday Reade, Mick Middles, Torn Apart: The Life of Ian Curtis (Omnibus Press), 2006
The authors of this new biography are uniquely qualified to reveal the extraordinary events surrounding the life and death of Ian Curtis. ...
Profile and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, March 2006
WHILE three-gal/two-guy outfit Delta 5 didn't exactly fly under the radar, its relatively brief tenure (1979-'81) meant the Leeds, England, band never got its proper ...
Retrospective and Interview by Fred Mills, Harp, June 2006
APRIL 1, 1977, LONDON: Onstage at punk venue the Roxy is a young quartet nearing the end of its 17-song set – which, in a ...
Spear Of Destiny: Grapes Of Wrath
Sleevenotes by Alex Ogg, Anagram, 2007
THE FOUNDATIONS of Spear Of Destiny can be traced back to 1978, when Kirk Brandon replaced bass player Jerry Isles in Devon punk band The ...
Joy Division: The Joy Division Industry
Comment by Chris Roberts, Quietus, The, April 2008
More offcuts from the Factory ...
Magazine: 'These gigs are a cherry on a cake'
Report and Interview by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, February 2009
THE ONE-TIME "most important man in pop" made a quietly triumphant comeback last week. Howard Devoto's Magazine, missing since 1981, were the most uncategorisable band ...
Joy Division: The Right Way To Remember Joy Division
Essay by Jude Rogers, Quietus, The, July 2009
As Unknown Pleasures reaches its 30th anniversary, Jude Rogers looks behind the commercialisation and Paul Morley's jowls at Joy Division's eternal truth ...
Public Image Ltd: John Lydon: 'PiL lets me express proper emotions'
Retrospective and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Observer, The, September 2009
ON CHRISTMAS DAY 1978, almost exactly a year after the implosion of the Sex Pistols while on tour in San Francisco, the artist formerly known ...
Feelies, The: Rick Moody Interviews the Feelies
Interview by Steven R Rosen, blurt-online.com, December 2009
The celebrated novelist and Wingdale Community Singers rocker interviews his favorite band. Blurt takes notes. ...
Public Image Ltd, O2 Academy, Birmingham****
Live Review by Nick Hasted, Independent, The, December 2009
Difficult, honest and angry, Lydon pushes at the limits ...
John Lydon, Public Image Ltd, Sex Pistols, The: John Lydon
Interview by John Doran, Stool Pigeon, The, March 2010
IN CALIFORNIA WE MEET a traveller from an antique land. On two scrawny legs – KFC issue – he stands. He has a shattered look. ...
Public Image Ltd: Dear John: Public Image Ltd
Interview by Ken Scrudato, Filter, May 2010
WAY BACK in 20th Century England, a gang of four insurrectionist-minded punk motherfuckers were to be found causing such an anarchic, subversive uproar as to ...
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2010
FOUR DECADES SINCE Devo first donned their matching overalls and began their assault on the pop mainstream, America's original disco-rock Dadaists are back. ...
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