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Cliff Jones

Cliff Jones

Cliff Jones wrote for Mojo and other publications before forming Gay Dad in the mid-'90s. He remains a proud footnote in the annals of rock.

Cliff on the RBP podcast

29 articles

List of articles in the library

By date | By artist | Most recently added

Talk Talk: Tech Talk

Interview by Cliff Jones, Melody Maker, 26 October 1991

For every minute of music you hear on TALK TALK'S new album, Laughing Stock, there's an hour of music abandoned. CLIFF JONES talks to MARK ...

Teenage Fanclub: Club Rules

Interview by Cliff Jones, Melody Maker, 1 February 1992

When Teenage Fanclub step into the studio, the rules are simple: use old guitars, old amps and old recording equipment "to make a record we ...

Leonard Cohen: Heavy Cohen

Interview by Cliff Jones, Rock CD, December 1992

  WRINKLED, GREY, HUMOROUS and urbane, wearing a crumpled suit and a huge pair of coke bottle specs that magnify his lacquered brown eyeballs to an ...

Leonard Cohen: The Future

Review by Cliff Jones, Rock CD, December 1992

THE CRITICAL REHABILITATION of the man they used to call Captain Mandrax is one of rock's more unexpected twists in recent years. ...

Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant: Robert Plant: An Interview

Interview by Cliff Jones, Rock CD, April 1993

FOR A MAN who's spent the last 20 years protesting that his own colourful history is of little interest to him, it comes as a ...

Beck, Jeff Buckley, David Gray, Ben Harper, Palace Music, Liz Phair: Beck et al: Don't fake the folk

Overview by Cliff Jones, The Face, August 1994

A WASTED voice wails to a scratchy guitar, drifting in some desolate, unforgiven shopping mall limbo: "I was working at McDonald's, doing the late night ...

Oasis: Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Beatles...

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, August 1994

The next Pistols, the next Beatles, or just this month's Next Big Thing? Oasis are good enough to fight the hype – but the battling ...

Oasis: Diary of an LP

Retrospective and Interview by Cliff Jones, Melody Maker, 1 October 1994

Seven different studios played host to OASIS as they attempted to record their debut album, each witnessing its own catalogue of disasters. CLIFF JONES traces ...

Pink Floyd: Earl's Court Exhibition Centre, London

Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1994

WE'RE THREE minutes in and the family in front of me (mother, father and two smaller facsimile editions thereof, dressed identically in Division Bell T-shirts) ...

Humble Pie, The Small Faces, Steve Marriott: Steve Marriott: All Or Nothing

Retrospective by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1994

The late Steve Marriott was, in his prime, a writer of transcendent English pop songs. He was, to the end, a blues and soul shouter ...

The Creation: "Red with Purple Flashes"

Retrospective and Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1994

Thus guitarist Eddie Phillips described the sound of the short-lived band who inspired everyone from Jimmy Page to Alan McGee. Please welcome the second dawn ...

Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: Sandy Troy: Captain Trips — The Life And Fast Times Of Jerry Garcia (Virgin £9.99)

Book Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, March 1995

IMAGINE BEING able to skip through time and witness historv first-hand. On my own list of happening temporal destinations would be McGoo's Pizza Parlour in ...

Traci Lords: Porn Free

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, March 1995

HELL HAS broken lose. Scaramanga's prosthetic nipple has fallen off, Odd Job's bowler hat is carving up anyone within range and the rest of the ...

Black Grape, Happy Mondays: Black Grape: Shaun Ryder Q+A

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, August 1995

Call the cops! Manchester's premier exponent of hooligan rock is back, and sounding better than ever. Cliff Jones grills the Black Grape head honcho on Star ...

Sandy Denny: The Attic Tracks 1972-1984

Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, September 1995

AT THE RISK of winning an all-comers hyperbole award, I shall begin and end by stating that Sandy Denny was the greatest female singer/songwriter Britain ...

Coolio: Paradise Regained

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, December 1995

At 15 Coolio embraced a life of crime and violence that left him addicted to crack and almost dead. His song 'Gangsta's Paradise' is the ...

David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails: David Bowie/ Nine Inch Nails: Meadowlands Arena, New Jersey

Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, December 1995

SOMEWHERE, ROUGHLY TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY through the non-linear-Gothic-drama-hyper-cycle-murder-mystery known as David Bowie's Outside, the seasoned pro lost his audience. What began with the ...

Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green: "I'm Peter Green"

Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, September 1996

OUTSIDE IT'S RAINING, THE KIND OF slick, greasy rain you only get in cities. The atmosphere is oppressive. Inside the Brewer's Inn, Wandsworth – a ...

Fiona Apple: Fifty Foot Teeny

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, September 1996

FIONA APPLE is a Manhattan teenager ablaze with songs of love, loss, anger and pain. "Given my way, I'd tie all shrinks together and burn the fuckers!" ...

Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett: The Crazy Diamond: Syd Barrett

Retrospective by Cliff Jones, MOJO, September 1996

He was Pink Floyd’s astral voyager who went too far, the star-child of psychedelia who never returned from his journey to inner space. Nearly 30 ...

The Fugees, Lauryn Hill: Fugees: Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles

Live Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, October 1996

COOL ALWAYS HAS CONTEXT. Tonight that context is the growing awareness that hip hop and black American music in general have embraced a new set ...

The Beatles: The Apple Scruffs: "We're waiting for The Beatles"

Retrospective by Cliff Jones, MOJO, October 1996

Spookily present wherever The Beatles went and finally immortalised in song by George, the Apple Scruffs bore a privileged witness to all the highs and ...

The Fugees: Fugee Life

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, October 1996

The success of 'Killing Me Softly' this summer has turned them into MTV darlings and global stars. Yet lead singer Lauryn Hill still believes she ...

Iggy Pop: Q+A: Iggy Pop

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, December 1996

Is it possible for a man to live a long and happy life on a diet of sex, drugs and sausage? Iggy Pop explains to ...

Blur, Johnny Marr, Oasis: Britpop: Let's Stay Together

Comment by Cliff Jones, The Face, January 1997

Britpop hasn't so much gone Pete Tong as Travelling Wilburys, says Cliff Jones ...

Beck: Captain Sensible

Interview by Cliff Jones, The Face, February 1997

That fuzzy folk fella, BECK HANSEN, might now be enjoying full-on international acclaim, but has it helped him and his music become any better understood? Meet the man who believes his generation needs to grow up ...

The Chemical Brothers: Dig Your Own Hole

Review and Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, April 1997

AT ABOUT 1.15 ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 7, 1966, pop music went and changed forever. The Beatles had just completed the first day's work ...

Elton John: Sound Your Funky Horn

Interview by Cliff Jones, MOJO, October 1997

Elton John blows his own horn ...

John Cale, The Velvet Underground: John Cale: Central Park Life

Interview by Cliff Jones, Arena Homme Plus, Fall 1997

John Cale arrived in New York City in 1963, a 21-year-old classical music prodigy from the Welsh valleys. He never went home. Via the colour ...

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