Ian Fortnam
Writer for NME, VOX, KERRANG and other publications, Ian has covered the recent alternative and hard-rock scenes extensively.
List of articles in the library by artist
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, December 2000
TIMES CHANGE. ROCK STARS and rock stars go. Thrash gives way to death; gives way to glam; gives way to stoner; gives way to nu. ...
Aerosmith: This Way to Insanity
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, October 1998
"WHEN THE moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore." A rich and fruity baritone croons impressively from room 523 of the ...
Aerosmith: Tales of Toys and Toxic Twins: Aerosmith
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2002
SPOOL BACK four years to the Virginia Beach Resort Hotel on America’s sun-kissed East Coast and I’m sharing a sumptuous afternoon repast with Aerosmith’s Steven ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, September 1998
Six months in the making, ASH's eagerly-awaited second album, Nu-Clear Sounds, is finally upon us. Today, the band look back on 16 weeks of tap-dancing ...
Ash: The New, Clear Sounds of Ash
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, September 1998
TUCKED AWAY behind a careworn inner city church on a quiet residential street in Highbury, North London, lies an outwardly unremarkable red brick building. This ...
Bay City Rollers, The: The Bay City Rollers
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Uncut, May 1998
Ahh, those much-mimicked hedgehogian coxcombs; those calf-chafing, tartan-trimmed trews with half a yard of surplus flapping flare to spare; those cheery, cheeky chipmunk grins and ...
Report and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, October 1999
When it comes to smut, filth and all-round seedy behaviour, no one can touch San Diego oiks BLINK 182. This is, after all, a band ...
David Bowie: Best Of 1974/1979 (EMI)
Review by Ian Fortnam, Vox, June 1998
Where the first instalment of this condensed collection of Bowie's "best" work covered the formative innocence of the man's glam rock period, 1974/1979 finds the ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, 1999
SINCE THEIR initial formation, way back in 1976, Manchester’s Buzzcocks have attained a genuinely legendary status in the hearts and minds of both aficionados of ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Fortnam, NME, April 1995
"I DRANK as much as anybody, but I'm not drinking now... except tonight." ...
Clash, The: Clash/Subway Sect/Slits/Prefects: Chancellor Hall, Chelmsford
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, NME, October 1994
BORED TEENAGERS – SUBURBAN HICKS with soap-stiffened Sid Vicious barnets and bleeding earlobes gape in awestruck, whey-faced wonder. Chelmsford, anonymous epicentre of NOWHERE is playing ...
Clash, The: The Clash: A Career Overview
Overview by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, June 1999
IN 1977, ROCK'N'ROLL WASN'T merely a peripheral diversion to take your mind off of the mortgage on a Saturday night, it was a matter of ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, May 2000
WAY BACK in the post-Woodstock doldrums of the early 1970s, Alice Cooper erupted out of Phoenix, Arizona, and immediately consigned the wilting bouquet of navel-gazing ...
David Coverdale, Deep Purple, Whitesnake: Mr. Coverdale and His Enormous Snake
Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, September 2002
THE GENTLEMAN rock star lounges decorously before us, a cigarette steadily smouldering between his fingers. ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, NME, May 1996
29 PALMS is hardly the most hospitable place on earth. It's a half-horse town located in the heart of the Californian desert and it's perpetually ...
Del Amitri: The Del Amitri Story
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Record Collector, October 1998
IT'S ALWAYS BEEN something of a thankless task, being a member of Del Amitri. Put bluntly, in spite of launching their prestigious career from the ...
Profile by Ian Fortnam, Uncut, January 1999
While it's an established fact that an extended tour of duty within the darkest recesses of the psychedelic jungle will extinguish myriad illuminations within the ...
Review by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2003
HAD IT NOT been for the existence of Rod Stewart & The Faces, I’d probably have a proper job by now. ...
Fall, The: The Fall: Dingwalls, Camden, London
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, November 2000
Well, they’re untouchable, aren’t they? Since Mark Edward Smith initially put the very first Fall line-up into place some 23 years ago, generations of chin-stroking ...
Feeder: "I'm The King Of The World"
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, August 1998
We join Grant Nicholas at a party on board a boat sailing around Seattle harbour. After six months of incendiary gigs, broken bones, nervous exhaustion and ...
Fun Lovin' Criminals: Fun Lovin’ Criminals
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Vox, September 1996
DON’T BELIEVE the hype! Europe's largest open-air rock festival did celebrate its 26th anniversary this year. ...
Green Day: The Biggest Punk Rock Band in the World: Green Day
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, unpublished, 2002
THE FACTS speak for themselves. With worldwide album sales currently in excess of 23 million, their Grammy Award winning, multi-platinum Dookie debut boasting an almost ...
Green Day, Offspring, Rancid: California Über Alles: US '90s Punk part 2
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, February 1999
After the huge success of GREEN DAY, THE OFFSPRING and RANCID came the inevitable wave of copy-cat bands and the backlash. Here, US punk's movers ...
GTOs, The: Girl Together Outrageously: Pamela Des Barres
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2002
IN CASUAL DEFIANCE of the fact that her fifty-fifth birthday looms large, the Marchioness Des Barres positively radiates rude good health and an undeniably disarming ...
Guns N' Roses: The Madness of King Axl
Report by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2002
AS OPPRESSIVE darkness gradually envelops Temple Newsam, a remote agrarian idyll that annually plays host to the Leeds leg of the Carling Festival, the all-pervasive ...
Guns N' Roses, Izzy Stradlin: Izzy Stradlin
Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, March 2001
SHAKING THE notoriety gained following six years on the road with Guns N' Roses was never going to be the easiest of tasks. But Izzy ...
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2003
BY DECEMBER 1984, having exploded onto a decidedly lacklustre rock scene blighted by vacuous new romanticism, post-punk austerity and backward glancing metal Gumby-ism, the five ...
Sleevenotes by Ian Fortnam, Castle Music, March 2001
PART THE FIRST: BANGKOK SHOCKS, SAIGON SHAKES, HANOI ROCKS ...
Review by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, August 1999
Of course, this whole Mondays comeback nonsense merely drags the hard-won bad name of everyone's favourite Manc scamps down to even lower levels of infamy. ...
Richard Hell: The Richard Hell Interview
Interview by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, 2000
RICHARD MEYERS, AKA Richard Hell, has more than made his mark on many areas of the media. Musically, he formed Television with Tom Verlaine, the ...
Iron Maiden: Dance Of Death (EMI)
Review by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, October 2003
IN ESSENCE, Iron Maiden are the rock Marmite. Ambivalence is simply not an option when bearing witness to their characteristic onslaught of dense, prog-laced riffage. ...
Wayne Kramer, MC5: The Wayne Kramer Interview
Interview by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, April 2000
DETROIT, MICHIGAN’S Motor City 5 slicked their savage, sonic sedition with pure, high octane, rock ‘n’ roll rocket fuel. When they initially spat their fretboard ...
Review by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, April 2000
BY 1973 Led Zeppelin had attained absolutely colossal status and the band's positively palaeontological enormity was utterly unprecedented. The Beatles may have enjoyed a far ...
Marilyn Manson: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, December 1998
The season of goodwill may be upon us, but one man has come to vomit on your festive cheer. Fresh from wrecking his hotel room, ...
Ian McLagan, Small Faces, The: All Ian McLagan's Rage
Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, April 2000
IAN MCLAGAN’S CV reads like a veritable who’s who of rock ‘n’ roll. Over the course of his 54 years the Hounslow-born keyboard player ...
Metallica: King Dongs and French Ticklers: Metallica with Strings Attached
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Front, February 2000
IN THE perpetually over-stated arena of titanic metal, no other band in the entire cosmos are quite so synonymous with brain-boggling hugeness as Metallica. ...
Metallica: Rage-a-holics Anonymous: Metallica
Report and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2003
OF COURSE, you all know the deal with Metallica. At present, the single most enormous band in the entire rock firmament who, having casually taken ...
Monster Magnet: Life After Mood-Altering: Monster Magnet
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, February 1999
SIT A SPELL in the stark and featureless foyer of the current temple of the Monster Magnet dreams, a half-built Sunset Strip hotel of rare ...
Gary Moore Goes Back to the Blues
Profile and Interview by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, 1999
CURIOUSLY UNDERVALUED, and rarely lauded in similarly hushed tones to the likes of Clapton, Beck and Page, Belfast-born Gary Moore is unequivocally one of the ...
Mötley Crüe, Tommy Lee: Tommy Lee Talks!
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, November 1999
STUDIO CITY, situated on the outskirts of the sprawling Twentieth Century Babylon that is Los Angeles, is a singularly bizarre locale. In amongst its statuesque ...
New York Dolls: The New York Dolls
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, July 2000
WHILE IT was the Rolling Stones who pretty much defined and trail-blazed the cavalier pursuit of decadence and debauchery in rock 'n' roll, it was ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, January 1999
THE UTILITARIAN confines of the cavernous Manchester Apollo are abuzz with a veritable army of well-disciplined tour troopers. It's 3.30 on a particularly inhospitable Mancunian ...
Offspring, Green Day: California Über Alles: US '90s Punk part1
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, January 1999
In 1994, GREEN DAY and THE OFFSPRING released two albums which changed the face of American music. From Dookie and Smash to 'Pretty Fly (For ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, May 2000
AS DIMEBAG Darrell spins the cap from an already dented litre bottle of Crown Royal whiskey in the trashed-out confines of Pantera’s booze-reeking Manchester Apollo ...
Partridge Family, The: The Tragedy of Danny Bonaduce
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, 1996
EVEN NOW, after almost three decades of relative sanity, it's utterly impossible to erase the excruciatingly impish image of Danny Bonaduce from the nation's collective ...
Peter Perrett, Only Ones, The: The One Featuring Peter Perrett: London, Camden Underworld
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, NME, May 1994
ELEGANTLY WASTED, stylishly dissipated.... it is far too easy to wrap the debilitating effects of heroin addiction in the prosaic flippancy of 1970s rock journalese. ...
Pogues, The, Shane MacGowan: Shane MacGowan: It's A Long Way From Tipperary
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, January 1998
AS PUNK PASSION dissipated and died, choking on its own irrelevance, a generation of serial venters were suddenly deprived of its primal, therapeutic effect. The ...
Iggy Pop: Lusts of a Legend: Iggy Pop
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, 2001
THE ICON flexes his implausibly limber, scar-studded torso and un-focuses his piercing blue eyes for a few seconds as he casts his mind back over ...
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, 1996
WITH INDIEDOM firmly in the grip of the inane and the insipid, the doleful delinquents of 1986 were in dire and desperate need of a ...
Queen: The Hard Life of Brian: Brian May
Interview by Ian Fortnam, unpublished, April 1998
It's quite a spread – set in the majestic, green sward Jerusalem of the Home Counties' stockbroker belt, and surrounded by idyllic gardens painstakingly landscaped ...
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, unpublished, 1997
DESPITE THE best efforts of such explosive talents as Suede, Polly Jean Harvey and the Manic Street Preachers, 1992 was not a great year for ...
Rammstein: Nude Power Generation
Report and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, November 1998
Last month, German shock metallers RAMMSTEIN were branded Nazis by the British press. We have flown to America to uncover the truth. We will subsequently ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The, John Frusciante: An Interview with John Frusciante
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, March 2001
WHEN FRESH-FACED, 18-year old New Yorker John Frusciante was originally recruited as guitarist by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, following the heroin-related death of original ...
Lou Reed: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, May 2000
THE PREMIER PARAGON OF subterranean New York cool’s post-Velvet Underground career has never been anything other than unpredictable. For every Berlin there’s been a Metal ...
Rolling Stones, The, Bill Wyman: Bill Wyman: The Classic Rock Interview
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2002
OVER THE COURSE of the last forty years probably more column inches of copy have been dedicated to the cavalier exploits of the Rolling Stones ...
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, February 2000
HIS REPUTATION most definitely precedes him. The press's perception of Henry Rollins has always been somewhat fractious. Journalists have always been suspicious, and on occasion ...
Sleevenotes by Ian Fortnam, Valentine, April 2000
THE EARLY 1970s were an extraordinary time for popular music. Lank-haired singer songwriters - drably dressed down in denim uniforms - rubbed chart-bound shoulders with ...
Runaways, The: Runaways: The Runaways/Queens Of Noise/Live In Japan/Waitin' For The Night
Review and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2003
UNTIL THE ADVENT of Sunset Strip cherry bombers The Runaways, all-girl rock bands were invariably self-consciously butch and hairy apparitions with names like Birtha and ...
Report and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Face, The, 2001
STANDING CENTRE-stage and plastered in a grin that pretty much redefines the very word maniacal is a 52-year old man uniquely blessed with the voice ...
Small Faces, The, Ronnie Lane: The Ronnie Lane Story
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Troubadour, June 1998
ON THE fourth of June, 1997 the world of popular music lost one of its finest song writing talents when Ronnie Lane, affectionately known to ...
Smiths, The: The Smiths' Backpages
Retrospective by Ian Fortnam, Vox, June 1997
They were the darlings of the '80s bedsit generation, a loner, a muso and their mates who created British Pop pretty much from scratch. Ten ...
Britney Spears: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, October 2000
IN CERTAIN SOCIAL CIRCLES it’s entirely acceptable, if not positively compulsory, for gentlemen rock journos of a certain age to swan about like leather-clad rutting ...
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, music365.com, 2001
WELCOME TO MIKE LEIGH'S Lollapalooza. Monstrous Brylcreem erections sway precariously, as gaggles of tiddly matrons giggle and jiggle the creases from their jeans. Unlikely lads ...
Report and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, Summer 2003
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR was responsible for the construction of Lincoln Castle in 1068. In Victorian times it housed a prison, but now acts as a ...
Stereophonics: The Stereophonics
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Vox, June 1998
"Only in America," postulates a booming Welsh baritone, "could they have a museum dedicated to a fucking soft drink." ...
Thin Lizzy: Wild One -The Very Best Of Thin Lizzy (Polygram)
Review by Ian Fortnam, NME, June 1996
THE LONG hot summer of 1976 was not a great time to be a pop kid. Brotherhood Of Man and Showaddywaddy (ask your dad) dominated ...
Tina Turner: London, Wembley Stadium
Live Review by Ian Fortnam, bol.com, July 2000
NESTLED BETWIXT the iconic twin towers of Wembley Stadium lies a sumptuous banqueting hall that’s completely rammed to its very rafters with the affluent and ...
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