Andy Gill
Buy <i>Don't Think Twice, It's All Right</i>
List of articles in the library by artist
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? ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1991
IT'S AUGUST 1991, and rock personages everywhere are cashing in on the summer season. Simple Minds pack Wembley Arena. Prince (temporarily) contemplates an outdoor spectacular ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, January 2008
THE ITUNES/MYSPACE revolution has speeded up the pop process to such an extent that a new act barely has time to draw breath before being ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, January 1978
SO NOW the whole Toussaint catalogue is available again, enabling listeners of taste to trace for themselves the development of the New Orleans man's approach, ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
AT ONE TIME, it seemed like everyone in Germany was in Amon Duul. ...
Laurie Anderson: Adelphi Theatre, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, June 1982
FIRSTLY, OF course, Laurie Anderson is a woman. ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, January 1977
TYPICAL OF A Sheffield gig is the way in which the dancing section of the audience settles down crosslegged in front of the stage to ...
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 ...
Band, The, Bob Dylan: Dylan and The Band: Obviously Five Believers
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 2000
He took them round the world – to endless booing. They settled in Woodstock, separated, and then reunited for the highest grossing tour of the ...
Band, The, Robbie Robertson: Robbie Robertson: The Q 100 Interview
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, January 1995
How the devil are you? ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Re-issues
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1990
AFTER LEAVING THE Beach Boys mid-tour in 1964 thanks to a nervous breakdown, Brian Wilson passed most of his time in the studio, one of ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Re-issues
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1991
SUNFLOWER (1970), THE FIRST ALBUM of a new contract with Warner Bros following their disaffection with Capitol, was on a par with later '60s albums. ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Candy Striped Avenger
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1993
Once, turban-topped, he trod the path to inner contentment; but now, baseball-hatted and belligerent, Beach Boy Mike Love is fighting mad, especially at his cousin ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Capitol reissues
Review by Andy Gill, NME, July 1986
NOW IS this poetry, or what? ...
Beach Boys, The, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson: Strange Bedfellow
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, August 1986
The Beach Boys are 25 years old and, to mark the occasion, that great white whale BRIAN WILSON has finally got up, cleaned up and ...
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. ...
Bethnal: Sheffileld Polytechnic
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1978
More of a ripple than a wave? ...
Beyoncé, 4 (Columbia) ** (out of 5)
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, June 2011
THERE COMES a certain point in mass pop culture when it ceases being primarily about the music and simply becomes a matter of numbers, whether ...
Birthday Party, The: The Birthday Party: Abbo — The Album
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, NME, June 1981
WHEN THE Birthday Party were recording their Prayers On Fire LP back "home" in Melbourne, Split Enz were recording Waiata in the studio next door. ...
Björk: Bjork: Biophilia (One Little Indian) **
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, October 2011
BJÖRK IS undoubtedly one of the more questing spirits working in music today; but with Biophilia, that quest seems to have led her too far ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, July 1995
HAVING EFFECTED the transition from cult figure to '90s style object with the universally popular Debut, Björk Gundmundsdottir's Post finds her and producer Nellee Hooper ...
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 ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes: Amorica
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1994
AMORICA, ACCORDING to Chris Robinson, is "somewhere north of hell and south of heaven", a Utopia for the frazzled and the put-upon. Amorica the album ...
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band: Stranger In Town
Review by Andy Gill, NME, May 1978
Meanwhile BACK IN '78 ...
David Bowie: Reality (ISO/Columbia)
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, September 2003
LIKE BOB DYLAN, David Bowie seems to have been re-invigorated by a lengthy period with a stable band: Reality appears with almost indecent haste a ...
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? ...
Boyfriends, The: The Boyfriends: Totley College, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, December 1978
TOTLEY TEACHERS Training College stuck out on the edge of Derbyshire gives The Boyfriends' gig there the atmosphere of a village hop, and it suits ...
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 ...
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 ...
Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (EMI)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1993
INITIALLY SOMEWHAT shrill and unimpressive, The Red Shoes improves immeasurably after repeated plays over a long period of time, gaining a solidity at odds with ...
Kate Bush: Finally, Something For The Grown-Ups
Essay by Andy Gill, Independent, The, October 2005
EARLY NEXT MONTH, Kate Bush releases Aerial, her first new album since The Red Shoes back in November 1993. Even by the relaxed schedules adopted ...
Buzzcocks, The: The Buzzcocks: Top Rank, Shefield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1978
Who, exactly, is gobbing on whom? ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1992
PACKED WITH ALL MANNER of musical invention, oddball observations and joyous pop nonsense, Uh-Oh is by some way David Byrne's most commercial – and enjoyable ...
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. ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
J.J. Cale: J.J.Cale: Travel Log
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1989
SOME ARTISTS set a style so distinctively their own they become immediately generic; as with The Ramones or Led Zeppelin, J.J. Cale's first album Naturally ...
Robert Calvert, Hawkwind: Hawklords: Leisure-Wear Of The Timelords
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, NME, December 1978
Actually, BOB CALVERT'S mystic dressing gown is not what this feature's about: what we have here is an appraisal of the new Hawkind, sorry, HAWKLORDS ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 2003
IT SPEAKS volumes for Can's protean, constantly-changing sound that fans, indeed the band members themselves, rarely agree which is their best album. ...
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 ...
Can: Free Trade Hall, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, December 1976
IN ONE OF the most glorious cases of mismatching ever seen on a British stage, Can are preceded tonight by an agonisingly kitsch comedy jug-band ...
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. ...
Captain Beefheart: Colin David Webb: Captain Beefheart - The Man And His Music
Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
PUBLISHERS MAY BE willing to publish books on fairly marginal artists such as (to choose two recent examples) R.E.M. and Tom Waits, but a cult ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
NICK CAVE SIGHS. He sighs a lot, as if weary of the world and all that's in it. ...
Christians, The: The Christians: Colour
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
IT SEEMS TO have been a long time coming, but in fashioning a worthy successor to their triple-platinum debut album, The Christians did set themselves ...
Christians, The: The Christians: Blood On The Tracks
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1992
Song-sequencing is a small yet significant element of what experts call "the album-making process". Could Revolver have started with anything other than 'Taxman?' Should 'Madame ...
Chrome: Half Machine Lip Moves
Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1979
THE TITLE OF Chrome's second album Alien Soundtracks perfectly describes one level on which their music can be taken: the evocation of a fantasy world ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, December 1976
ON ONE level, this gig (the second of City Boy's current tour) could be whiled away by playing "spot the influence" – 10cc, Roxy, the ...
George Clinton: Funkadelic: Doctor Funkenstein, I Presume
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1992
"Free your ass," he once advised the world, "and your mind will follow." Another song of his explored the fear of being eaten by a ...
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 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 ...
Leonard Cohen: The Future (Columbia)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, January 1993
THE PROJECT bears a logo, or more accurately a sort of heraldic device, comprising hummingbird, heart and handcuffs: is this how Leonard Cohen views the ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, May 1993
Leonard Cohen: Royal Albert Hall, London ...
Essay by Andy Gill, Guardian, The, June 2008
Pompous, mawkish, and unbearably smug, Coldplay have conquered the charts with the sonic equivalent of wilted spinach, argues Andy Gill. And in the process, they've ...
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 ...
Sam Cooke: The Man And His Music
Review by Andy Gill, NME, April 1986
I SUPPOSE any Sam Cooke record is a gift from God, even an LP which fundamentally belies its title in the way this album does. ...
Julian Cope: Je Ne Suis Pas Sting!
Report by Andy Gill, Q, May 1991
IN A FUNKY but chic little Parisian cafe called the Piano Vache (rough translation: Soft Cow), Julian Cope faces a roomful of French journalists and ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1984
ANCIENT BEAT journalist and hippie doyen Ralph J. Gleason, who could be a daft old coot at the best of times, got it completely wrong ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: Crosby, Stills & Nash, Fleet Pavilion, Boston, USA
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, July 2004
THE FLEET PAVILION is a sleek, tented outdoor auditorium overlooking Boston harbour. Like the Millennium Dome, but useful. And actually functioning as a venue. And ...
Ice Cube: Lethal Injection (Island)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, January 1994
CUBE'S LATEST missive from the front line of black resentment opens with a homicidal racist gag, Dr Ice Cube getting his patient Mr White to ...
Profile by Andy Gill, Q, April 1992
WHEN TONI HALLIDAY first bumped into Dean Garcia backstage at a Eurythmics gig, it wasn't so much love at first sight as the first inklings ...
DAF: D.A.F.: The Venue, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, June 1981
'ALLES IST Gut', for sure, ist gut: there's an almost imagistic pointedness to DAF's musical progressions, just simple sequencer patterns stripped bare of "musicianly" encumbrances ...
Del Amitri: It's All Downhill From Here
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1995
"FUCK! NOOOOOO!" The man in the prog-rock vintage greatcoat, Soviet military headgear and unfeasibly sizable sideburns wavers under the implacable pull of gravity, a tremor ...
Depeche Mode: Songs of Faith and Devotion
Review by Andy Gill, Q, April 1993
THEIR LAST album, Violator, was a quantum leap over Depeche Mode's previous output, as if the live-double compilation, 101, had purged their past. Buoyed by ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, NME, December 1978
They came from Outer Akron...Their purpose – Conquest.Their methods – Unpleasant.This was...Spud Wars ...
Dire Straits, Talking Heads: Talking Heads, Dire Straits: Sheffield University, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, January 1978
How 77 moves smoothly into '78 ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1978
Dr Feelgood: Sheffield City Hall ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, October 1989
Prophet in an anorak: Dylan delivers at last. ...
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 ...
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 ...
Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks: A Critic's Obsession
Essay by Andy Gill, Independent, The, March 2004
TODAY, IN MINNEAPOLIS, a group of musicians will assemble at the Pantages Theater to perform Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks in its entirety. ...
Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band: The Mountain
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, February 1999
THE LATE '90s have been something of a golden period for Steve Earle: this is his fourth album in as many years, and they've all ...
Elbow: Asleep in the Back (V2)
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, May 2001
WHAT'S IN a name? The Bury-based indie combo Elbow found out a year or two ago when, after Universal's swallowing of their label, Island, they ...
Elbow: Build a Rocket Boys! (Fiction) ****
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, March 2011
IN THE THREE years since The Seldom Seen Kid hoisted the band into the first rank of arena-rock dependables, Elbow have had plenty of time ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, June 2003
HE'S THE LEADING pop icon of his generation, the undisputed Elvis of his era, and for many of the 65,000 fans who attend his concert, ...
Eminem: What's SO F***ing Great About Eminem?
Essay by Andy Gill, Word, The, March 2003
The worst character traits imaginable assembled into violent, cautionary cartoons have produced the charismatic star of the moment, now further immortalised in an acclaimed movie. ...
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. ...
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 ...
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 — ...
Brian Eno: Towards An Understanding of Pop Past and Present
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1993
IN THE BIG room at Peter Gabriel's Real World studio down in Box, Wiltshire, Brian Eno holds court at an informal workshop involving himself and ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, May 1993
ELEVEN years between albums is excessive, even by living-legend standards. For some pop performers, that's time enough to get discovered, be the next big thing, ...
Donald Fagen: Former Steely Dan Member On His New Album
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, March 2006
IN THE BRUTAL world of American football, teams often employ what they call a "hurry-up offense", a series of plays they can run quickly when ...
Fall, The: Mark E. Smith's Record Collection
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1990
CROUCHED IN THE CORNER of a back room in a semi somewhere in Prestwich, Mark Smith flips through one of several large stacks of records; ...
Fall, The: The Wit And Wisdom Of Mark Smith
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, January 1981
DID YOU KNOW?That Andy Gill discovered all these pearls of wisdom – and more – while talking to The Fall. ...
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 ...
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
IT'S SOMETIME IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER OF 1973-4, and Faust are playing Sheffield City Hall. ...
Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues (Bella Union) *****
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, April 2011
WITH HELPLESSNESS Blues, Fleet Foxes triumphantly deliver on the promise of their popular debut, the album that helped establish folk-rock once again as a formidable ...
Fleetwood Mac: Peter Green: Rarities, Two Greens Make A Blue and Tramp: Tramp
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1991
AS A RULE, old legends might best be left alone to gather mythic dust. ...
Gallagher & Lyle, Bryn Haworth: City Hall, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1978
We used… to believe… in rock'n'roll ...
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 ...
Larry Graham: The Sly Sound Of Success
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, August 1982
THE SOFA is sumptuous, the clothes casual; Larry Graham sits swathed in both, the epitome of affluent black America. We're in a hospitality suite in ...
John Grant: Success At Last For A Rock'n'roll Survivor
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, January 2011
Dangerous sex, addiction and self-loathing – John Grant's turbulent life inspired one of the best albums of last year. Andy Gill meets him ...
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 ...
Al Green: Higher Plane (Hi/PRT)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, April 1982
OH, HAPPY man...You can tell Al Green is truly saved from a quick glance at the cover, from the way his Daz-white shirt blue-airbrushes its ...
Hall & Oates: The Voice Of Young America
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, March 1995
Daryl Hall is the sweet soul voice in the Hall & Oates duo, whose "black-white" music has made them America's hit single champs of the ...
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, October 1999
A fourth helping of blue stew. Fourth album finds gifted slide guitarist broadening his approach. ...
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 ...
George Hatcher Band, The, Dr. Feelgood: Dr Feelgood: City Hall, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1976
HERE IN Sheffield there's a local aphorism along the lines of "Tha' works 'ard, so bloody well play hard". It fits. Most of the concerts ...
Nona Hendryx, Peter Gabriel: Peter Gabriel/Nona Hendryx: Live in Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1977
NONA HENDRYX possesses all the lumps and bumps, (in abundance), in all the right places, and flaunts her curvacity in a performance which promises sexuality ...
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 ...
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. ...
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, October 1986
THERE'S THIS big guy sitting two seats down the table from me at The Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, and he's blocking my view. ...
Horslips: Heard The One About Irish Band And The Green Beer?
Report by Andy Gill, NME, May 1978
No? Read on then, bro'. This is a story of amazing weirdness. You obviously haven't heard about the green underwear either. Or the green Chicago ...
Human League, The: The Human League: Reproduction (Virgin)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1979
EVERY TV appearance Gary Numan makes must be like a dagger to the heart of The Human League, every radio-play a bit more salt in ...
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; ...
Hüsker Dü: Husker Dü: The Thrash Aesthetic
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, June 1985
IN ONE OF HER more perceptive Time Out columns recently La Burchill took a hefty sideswipe at the video popsters' incessant flirtation with outsiderdom – ...
Janis Ian: Protest and Survive
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1993
AT THE age of 42, Janis Ian is making a comeback (her second, or is it third?), which would be unexceptional save for the fact ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
IN WHAT MUST HAVE been a classic, once-in-a-lifetime meeting of the Ts, Ice-T once taught Mr T to rap. You remember Mr T: burly black ...
Ice-T: Home Invasion (Virgin/Rhyme Syndicate)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1993
ICE-T'S FIFTH album – his first post-riot record and, more importantly, his first following the 'Cop Killer' brouhaha and his subsequent departure from Sire – ...
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1992
THE CONCERT FOR LIFE: INXS, CROWDED HOUSE, DIESEL, JENNY MORRIS, RATCAT, YOTHU YINDI, DEF FX – CENTENNIAL PARK, SYDNEY, March 28, 1992 ...
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 ...
Bon Iver: Victoria Apollo, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, December 2008
"THIS IS AN extremely big deal for us," says Justin Vernon, standing beneath a giant pterodactyl. Vernon is the songwriter, lead singer and creative mainspring ...
Jean-Jacques Burnel: J.J. Burnel: Euroman Cometh (United Artists)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, April 1979
IT WAS THE 19th Century Italian poet Leopardi who put it best: "Great truths are discovered only by a faculty of reason in a condition ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1991
JESUS JONES'S Liquidizer was one of the most assured debuts of recent years, an exhilarating but solid presentation of a band who, though mindful of ...
Norah Jones: And Now For My Next Trick: Norah Jones and the Difficult Second Album Syndrome
Comment by Andy Gill, Independent, The, February 2004
BY THIS TIME next week, Norah Jones will probably be nestling atop the album charts with Feels like Home, the follow-up to her multi-platinum, Grammy-grabbing ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The Devil in Miss Jones
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, January 2004
Rickie Lee Jones has always had her demons - and now she's living in the America of George Bush and Jeffrey Dahmer. ...
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. ...
Kraftwerk: The Man Machine (Capitol)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, April 1978
IT IS RATHER unfortunate that Kraftwerk's current popularity is based, to a large extent, on the chic appeal of David Bowie's favour. True, such favour ...
Kraftwerk: Terminal Weirdness à Paris
Report by Andy Gill, NME, April 1978
(Airport terminal, that is. Meanwhile somewhere up in some posey skyscraper, KRAFTWERK are boring everyone stiff...) ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, February 2000
ONE OF the problems of being a critically-lauded cult success with scant resources is that fans' well-meaning allowances can lead to low expectations, particularly regarding ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1986
DURING THE early/mid-'70s, Warner Brothers were the envy of their major corporate rivals for their unparalleled hip-act market-share. Partly, one suspects, for the way their ...
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. ...
Little Richard: The Specialty Sessions
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
THOUGH HE RECORDED for several other labels in his career, the few years that Little Richard spent with Art Rupe's Specialty Records were to provide ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, November 1976
THERE ARE several possible ways to review this gig. ...
Phil Manzanera: Dance Away The Heartache
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, July 2004
SEVERAL FLOORS UP a converted warehouse block in a tiny mews in north-west London, Phil Manzanera lounges in the pristine calm of his home studio. ...
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 ...
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 ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1992
ON A TWISTY MOUNTAIN ROAD ABOUT 25 miles outside Toulon, another mad bastard is laying his life on the line, taking his bike way over ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, September 1998
NAMED AFTER Greil Marcus's evocative description of The Band's early albums, this latest offering from Mercury Rev is, by some distance, the best pop record ...
Midlake: In Tune with the Times of Others
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, February 2010
IN THE RUSSIAN visionary film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's long, prismatic biopic of the great 15th-century icon painter Andrei Rublev, the monk Rublev strives to sustain the ...
Monkees, The: The Monkees et al: Comebacks
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1986
TWENTY YEARS ago, Mickey Dolenz, a former child actor best known in the title role of Circus Boy, answered an ad for "Four Insane Boys, ...
Mothers Of Invention, The, Frank Zappa: Frank Zappa: A Real Mother
Obituary by Andy Gill, Q, February 1994
Francis Vincent Zappa II, 1940-1993 ...
Elliott Murphy: Just A Story From America (CBS)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, May 1977
A FEW years ago, Rolling Stone printed a sizeable review of the first albums by Elliott Murphy and Bruce Springsteen, assessing them as contenders for ...
My Bloody Valentine: About Bloody Time!
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, January 1992
In terms of mystique, My Bloody Valentine would have been better off never releasing another record. But three years and many pale imitators later, they ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, July 1979
IF I WERE to tell you that a record you've probably never heard of was the album that David Bowie's been trying to make these ...
Neville Brothers, The: Neville Brothers: The Mississippi Mafia
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, August 1990
THE NEW ORLEANS Jazz & Heritage Festival makes most British music festivals, even the Readings and Glastonburys, look a bit sick by comparison. It's not ...
Neville Brothers, The: The Neville Brothers: Yellow Moon
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1989
The Neville Brothers bring it all back home. ...
Colin Newman: A-Z (Beggars Banquet)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1980
AFTER THE flawed experimentalism of Gilbert and Lewis's Dome and Cupol projects, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Colin Newman's first solo outing ...
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 ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1992
THE ENTRANCE to the grounds is classic old Hollywood style, with a phone you have to call from to get someone to operate the remote-controlled ...
Will Oldham: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Prince of Perversity
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, March 2004
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, the artist formerly known as Will Oldham, is perhaps the most uniquely gifted songwriter of his generation. And, as Andy Gill discovers, ...
Orb, The: The Orb: Mystic Pizza
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, November 1992
They're cooking up something deeply strange in the sound kitchen. The Orb explore your inner space with endless sonic dreamscapes that suggest a planet where ...
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 ...
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 ...
Pere Ubu: 390 Degrees Of Simulated Stereo
Review by Andy Gill, NME, April 1981
SUBTITLED Ubu Live: Volume One, this LP contains recordings made by the Ubu of Modern Dance days between May 1976 and March 1979 in Cleveland, ...
Pere Ubu: Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection (Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, November 1985
BY 1975, THINGS had begun to look a little pale around the Rock'n'Roll gills (no relation); had begun to fade away, in fact. ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, December 1991
THANKS TO INNOVATORS LIKE Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire and the Human League, alongside the huge leaps made in drum-machine technology by the Roland corporation, musicians finally ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty: Wildflowers (Warner)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1994
THE SURPRISING choice of Rick Rubin as producer after a highly successful liaison with Jeff Lynne over his last couple of albums might suggest a ...
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 ...
Pixies, The: The Pixies: No Time-Wasters!
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1990
"IT'S NOT I'M ORIGINAL or anything." Charles Kittridge Thompson IV, aka Black Francis, Pixies frontman, is describing how he comes up with the lyrics to ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1980
THE RECENT correspondent to Gasbag who used Czechoslovakia's Plastic People as a stick with which to beat NME's supposed ignorance of domestic repression was himself ...
Pop Group, The: The Pop Group: We Are Time (Y/Rough Trade)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, July 1980
THIS COULD have been a great record. On paper, it seemed to be a handful of The Pop Group's strongest suits. ...
Elvis Presley: Greil Marcus: Dead Elvis
Book Review by Andy Gill, Q, March 1992
AT THE CLOSE OF the Presliad, the most substantial part of his classic Mystery Train and still the most illuminating work on Elvis, Greil Marcus ...
Pretenders, The: The Pretenders: Sheffield University
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, July 1979
Duty Now For The Past? ...
Proclaimers, The: The Proclaimers Favourite Records
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, February 1991
CRAIG REID holds up a copy of Prince's Parade, his favourite album by the tiny genius, and lavishes approbation upon the sublime 'Kiss' – "just ...
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? ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, May 1994
POISED ON the brink of widespread success after nearly 14 years as linchpin of Sheffield glum-rock combo Pulp, Jarvis Cocker muses upon the long and ...
Radiohead: First Impression: OK Computer
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, June 1997
EXPERTLY SURFING THE WAVE of pre-millennial tension, OK Computer offers a dozen snapshots of contemporary unease that combine to form a larger picture of The ...
Radiohead: Hail To The Thief (Parlophone)
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, June 2003
THOSE RADIOHEAD fans hankering after the band's more mainstream indie-rock style will be heartened by the first sound they hear on Hail To The Thief, ...
Radiohead: So Long to Jonny Guitar: Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, October 2009
THOM YORKE may be the driving force and most recognisable face of Radiohead, but for many fans it's the guitarist Jonny Greenwood, the thin, twitchy ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
Collectors of happy endings, look no further. Bonnie Raitt's career was dumper-bound until a P45 from her record company inspired her to rediscover her musical ...
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! ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The: The Hottest Band in the World: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Profile by Andy Gill, Independent, The, May 2006
IN RECENT YEARS, mountain-man lookalike record producer Rick Rubin has been justly fêted for his career-revival work with Johnny Cash, which effectively recontextualised the Man ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
IT'S OFTEN OVERLOOKED in the face of the wholesale "decadent" mythology that has surrounded him since the early Velvet Underground, but of all the poets ...
Reggae Regular, Gladiators, The: The Gladiators, Reggae Regular: Rafters, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, May 1978
OF LATE, I and I have been nursing a nagging ambivalence towards reggae. ...
R.E.M.: Lifes Rich Pageant (IRS)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, August 1986
THE ONLY BAND that mutters, as an American commentator wittily described REM, are back, and not before time, too. The past few years have seen ...
R.E.M.: St James's Church, Piccadilly, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, September 2004
R.E.M. ARE NO strangers to the "secret" show, having pioneered them back in the ‘80s, when they would appear at places such as the tiny ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, April 1991
If R.E.M. appear to walk the street of Athens, Georgia, as if they owned the place – well, that's because they do. Now, as the ...
Replacements, The, Hüsker Dü: Husker Du and The Replacements: Euphoric… Urgent... Raucous... Drunk
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, August 1987
MINNEAPOLIS: it must be something they put in the water. ...
Replacements, The, Paul Westerberg: Paul Westerberg: The Agony Aunt Of Grunge
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1993
MID-APRIL in Minneapolis. This weather is serious business. It's bitterly cold. Bob Mould, now of the mighty Sugar but then of the mighty Hüsker Dü, ...
Residents, The: The Residents: Eskimo (Ralph)
Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1979
I'M NOT altogether sure quite how to convey the magnitude of The Residents' achievement with Eskimo. What I am sure of is that it's without ...
Residents, The: The Residents: Not Available
Review by Andy Gill, NME, November 1978
MORE SO than anything else they've done, when Not Available's weirdness wears off, its "merry tunes" become an indelible stain on one's day-to-day existence. After ...
Residents, The: The Residents: Re-issues
Review by Andy Gill, Q, February 1990
LISTENING TO THE early Residents LPs as they came out through the '70s was always attended by the excitement of knowing you were going to ...
Robbie Robertson: The Big Easy
Report and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1991
It's New Orleans, high summer, and everybody's wilting with the heat. Everybody, that is, except Robbie Robertson – the legendary Band guitarist who's just made ...
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 ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, July 1994
IN AN abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Toronto, Henry Rollins is getting beaten up. A huge, Rasputin-like figure (monk's garb, frankly Messianic face-fungus) throws ...
Todd Rundgren, Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, July 2004
SINCE his mid-Seventies heyday, Todd Rundgren has always been preaching to the converted, so his religious-themed show is at least appropriate, though unlikely to extend ...
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 ...
Santana: Jack of All Trades: Carlos Santana
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, January 2000
AROUND THIS TIME every year, the American music industry holds its collective breath as the Grammy awards nominations are announced, eager to see which of ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, MOJO, March 1995
SUCCESS SWEPT OVER SANTANA WITH A suddenness which might have destroyed a less durable group. ...
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 ...
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 ...
Screaming Blue Messiahs: Gun-Shy
Review by Andy Gill, NME, May 1986
THE COVER of The Screaming Blue Messiahs' first mini-album/EP Good And Gone captures their music perfectly: a posse of WW2 Grumman fighters cruising above the ...
Screaming Blue Messiahs: Bikini Red
Review by Andy Gill, Q, January 1988
WITH THEIR LAST album Gun-Shy, The Screaming Blue Messiahs suggested that, with a little focusing, they might easily grow into Britain's equivalent of ZZ Top ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
"AAAH, IT'S JUST BEEN NON-STOP," says Seal of his virtual year-long bout of promotional chores. "I just wanna get out and play. I'm not interested ...
Bob Seger: Palace Theatre, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, October 1977
THAT IT should have taken Bob Seger so long to receive his just reward is in itself one of the more disgraceful cases of rock ...
Bob Seger: The Michigan Marvel
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, November 1977
ON THE covers of several of Bob Seger's albums there's this curious production credit to "Punch". ...
Sigur Ros: Sigur Rós: Why We're Mesmerised By The Hypnotic Icelandic Band
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, January 2009
EACH WEEK, along with the basic album and singles sales charts, there are myriad other charts published that track the diverse fortunes of the music ...
Simon & Garfunkel: Simon and Garfunkel: MEN Arena, Manchester
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, July 2004
AS YOU'D EXPECT, the greying audience for Simon and Garfunkel's first UK show in 30 years is similar to that which regularly turns out for ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1995
MICK HUCKNALL has barely put a foot wrong over the past six years, since A New Flame set new, impeccable standards for Brit-soul back in ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, October 1990
This Is Spinal Tap: the movie that became a legend, the spoof band whose name became a by-word for all that is incompetent, disastrous and ...
Spiritualized: Lazer Guided Melodies
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1992
Spiritualized: Blissed out, numbly minimalist and distinctly unsweaty. ...
Split Enz: Sheffield University, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, May 1977
THE IDEA that a rock band from New Zealand should possess any merit whatsoever strikes many as ludicrously funny; the idea that such an antipodean ...
Review by Andy Gill, NME, November 1980
THE COVER to this, the seventh Steely Dan album (discounting the Greatest Hits compilation), features a painting or anaglyph of a dancing couple of presumably ...
Steely Dan: Countdown To Ecstasy
Review and Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, February 2000
When Steely Dan vocalist Donald Fagen released his second solo album, Kamakiriad, in 1993, fans marvelled at the inordinate length of time it had taken ...
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 ...
Steely Dan, Walter Becker: Walter Becker: Hasn't He Grown
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, April 1995
WHAT'S WRONG with this picture? Halfway up a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Walter Becker, one-half of Steely Dan, the most cynical rock'n'roll ...
Steely Dan, Donald Fagen: Donald Fagen: Back To Bed For Another 11 Years Then
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1993
VARIOUSLY JET-LAGGED and eyeing each other guardedly from behind their paper plates and coffee cups, half a dozen representatives of the world's rock press settle ...
Sufjan Stevens: Sufjian Stevens: Illinois
Review by Andy Gill, Uncut, 2005
IN AN AGE when the commercial imperative has reduced the notion of ideal musical production to one of recycling old techno riffs, slapping a treated ...
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, June 1978
BY DAY, DENNIS DE YOUNG WAS A REGULAR GUY WITH A PONCEY NAME, LACQUERED HAIR, AND A PENCHANT FOR GAUDY FAKE ANTIQUE FURNITURE... BUT BY ...
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, June 1978
STYX, AS you'll doubtless be aware if you're familiar with the curious musical predilections of our American cousins, are a disgustingly successful five-piece band of ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, NME, August 1982
Last week the legendary SUN RA, who claims to come from the planet Saturn, beamed down to earth to play two sell-out concerts at London's ...
Taj Mahal: A Living Edifice To The Blues
Live Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, June 2004
Taj Mahal/Tinariwen, Barbican, London **** ...
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 ...
Profile and Interview by Andy Gill, MOJO, April 1997
Chilly symphonies and misty synth-scapes: the Gothic revival starts here ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, April 1992
JOHN FLANSBURGH of They Might Be Giants, that most droll of duos, albeit one with a serious undertow, is anxious. ...
13th Floor Elevators: Various Artists: Where The Pyramid Meets The Eye
Review by Andy Gill, Q, May 1991
ROKY ERICKSON, LEADER OF LEGENDARY Texan psychedelic combo the 13th Floor Elevators, is perhaps an odd choice for the tribute album treatment. ...
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 ...
Ting Tings, The: The Ting Tings: "We don't keep songs for a rainy day"
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, March 2012
The Ting Tings threw away a whole album before their new release, they tell Andy Gill ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, October 2000
HAVING SPENT the majority of the past decade searching for ways to rejuvenate the jaded stadium-rock formula — as much for their own benefit as ...
UB40: UB4O: Unfortunately, We Were At The Woolwich
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, April 1981
UB4O: Woolwich Odeon, London ...
UK Subs, Dead Kennedys: Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables; UK Subs: Crash Course
Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1980
SPOT THE DIFFERENCEStudy these two pictures carefully. At first sight they may seem identical, but there are at least twelve small but significant differences between ...
Violent Femmes: Dangerous Visions
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, March 1986
The VIOLENT FEMMES are, in deed, weird fish. Bagpipers, Bolan and Wild Billy Burroughs all seem to stagger blindly into their orbit. ANDY GILL herein ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, October 1992
ON HIS EARLIEST albums, piano was the definitive Tom Waits instrument, its chords illuminated only by the dimmest of nightclub spotlights, filtered through a tumbler ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, September 1991
THIS, THE FIRST of two volumes of previously unissued Tom Waits tracks, is the latest fruit of the deal with Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa's ...
Tom Waits: London, Victoria Apollo
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1981
TOM WAITS, sad to say, has now joined the illustrious pantheon of artistes whose performances have driven me to sleep. Sad, because this is the ...
Was (Not Was): David Was' Top Ten
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, August 1992
David Was of Was (Not Was) invites us into his lovely garage. Much of his collection stems from an earlier career as a jazz writer: ...
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, June 1990
THERE ARE SEVEN of us round the microphone, and I, for one, am a little nervous. I should be, too: three of the voices present ...
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 ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, June 2003
HIS FIRST ALBUM in six years finds Steve Winwood striking out in the direction of Latin America, using a core unit of jazz guitarist Jose ...
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' ...
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 ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, September 1992
Stevie Wonder reissued: from 12-Year-Old-Genius to I Just Called To Say I Love You. ...
Wreckless Eric: Wreckless Eric
Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1978
IT'S RATHER appropriate that you can buy a hideous dung coloured version of Wreckless Eric's first album. Like the person who reminds you that the ...
Wreckless Eric: Sheffield Polytechnic
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, March 1978
A YOUNG lady appears on the stage and proceeds to shout something about today being her birthday, saxist John Glyn accompanying her (less than diplomatic) ...
Robert Wyatt: Cuckoo In The Nest
Interview by Andy Gill, Independent, The, September 2003
Idiosyncratic and eccentric, Robert Wyatt's unique musical style is consistently lauded by both critics and musicians. Andy Gill talks to him ahead of the release ...
XTC: Sheffield Polytechnic, Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, February 1978
IT WAS pointed out, some while ago, that a large number of punk outfits preface their name with the definite article, as compared with the ...
XTC, Yachts, The: XTC/The Yachts: Sheffield
Live Review by Andy Gill, NME, September 1979
THIS IS POP? THIS IS POP?? ...
Interview by Andy Gill, NME, September 1986
WHEN IT comes to regressive, conservative musical forms, country music has the field beaten hands down. No contest. An unholy alliance of God, ...
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, ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, August 2003
NEIL YOUNG is probably the most overindulged talent in rock: overindulged by his record company, who let him put out whatever old rubbish he has ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1991
JUST WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS, to quote Uncle Frank: yet another record label, and eight more Zappa albums hot on the heels of his two ...
Review by Andy Gill, Q, August 1990
UNCLE FRANK'S EXTENSIVE reissues programme continues apace with eight more blasts from various bits of his past. ...
Frank Zappa: Frank's Wild Years
Interview by Andy Gill, Q, December 1989
AT DEAD OF night, behind barred gates and video security cameras up in the Hollywood Hills above Los Angeles, a tall, angular man with neatly ...
Review by Andy Gill, Independent, The, September 2003
Warren Zevon's final, valedictory album provides ultimate proof that those of us who believed him to be one of the greatest songwriters of his generation ...
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 ...
List of genre pieces
Al Green: Don't Look Back (RCA)
Review by Andy Gill, Q, October 1993
When Al Green first recorded with Willie Mitchell in 1970, his cover of The Temptations' 'I Can't Get Next To You' launched his career as ...
Soundtracks: 'Mumble Mumble Film'
Overview by Andy Gill, Q, March 1992
As De Niro so eloquently put it, movie soundtracks are not what they were. Too often they're just second-rate rock songs slung together. There are ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Gill, Q, September 1992
STEVIE WONDER NEVER REALLY HAD a say in the matter: right from, his first album, he was Little Stevie Wonder, The 12-Year-Old Genius; an assessment ...
The Summer of Love's Counterculture Butterflies
Overview by Andy Gill, MOJO, June 1997
Who were they? Where are they now? ...
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