Ian Gittins
Ian Gittins began writing for Melody Maker in 1985, soon after leaving university, initially as their regional correspondent in Birmingham. After moving to London, he worked at MM in the halcyon late '80s/early '90s period that many regard as the paper's best ever years. In 1992 he took a detour away from music when a love affair led him to Novosibirsk, Siberia, from where he contributed articles to Moscow Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New York Times. He returned to London, and Melody Maker, in 1993 and also wrote for The Independent, Time Out and MTV before being deputy editor of a classy but sadly short-lived arts and lifestyle magazine, Ikon. After a severely misguided spell editing a south-east Asia music industry trade magazine, he became senior music editor at Virgin Books, where he commissioned and edited major biographies of David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Blur, Manic Street Preachers, The Charlatans, Bush and Creation Records, and survived a week in the company of Ike Turner. He returned to freelancing in 2000, and now writes features and reviews for The Guardian as well as contributing to a host of national and international magazines and websites. He is the co-author with Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe of the New York Times bestseller The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star (MTV Books, 2007) and also penned Top of the Pops: Mishaps, Miming and Music (BBC Books, 2007), an official yet profoundly flippant history of the long-running TV music show.
List of articles in the library by artist
Beach Boys, The, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson: The Strife Of Brian
Profile and Interview by Ian Gittins, Man About Town, Spring 2011
IN THE 1991 Steve Martin movie L.A. Story, which dates from the days when he was still spasmodically funny, Martin played Harris K. Telemacher, a ...
Review by Ian Gittins, Q, December 1998
New album which isn't the new album, but which still has a certain genius. ...
Beck: The Town Hall, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Q, March 1999
He's released an odd new album. Oddly, he's only going to play it once. ...
Big Country : Big Country: Talk About The Passion
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, January 1989
Big Country are on tour again, playing to more people in bigger places, taking Peace In Our Time to the masses. Ian Gittins catches up ...
David Bowie: Bowie In America 1972/73
Retrospective by Ian Gittins, MOJO, January 2007
MORE THAN 30 years after the event, Ziggy Stardust remains one of the most inventive and flamboyant productions in rock history. Yet when Bowie took ...
Retrospective by Ian Gittins, MOJO, January 2007
BY THE END of recording Station To Station in Los Angeles in 1975, David Bowie was in meltdown. Strung-out, paranoid and at war with his ...
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, May 2003
THE WORDS ARE TALL, luridly colourful and carefully stitched onto a bed sheet, and the sentiment is unambiguous. As Busted guitarist Matt Jay’s eyes alight ...
Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, July 1990
HOW TOUGH is Johnette Napolitano? Maybe here's a clue. Bloodletting, as Mat Smith noted, is an intensely personal LP, cruelly close to her, but for ...
Darling Buds, The: The Darling Buds: Confetti Junction
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, February 1989
Saturday11:20 IT'S SATURDAY MORNING kiddie time, and The Darling Buds are shining out of the telly. After Bruno Brookes and the Red Arrows display team, ...
Deacon Blue: The Reluctant Tourist
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, April 1989
AFTER THE SUCCESS OF THEIR DEBUT ALBUM, RAINTOWN, AND A STRING OF HIT SINGLES INCLUDING THE RECENT 'WAGES DAY', RICKY ROSS AND HIS BAND LOOK ...
Dizzee Rascal: Dizzee Heights or The Year Of The Rascal
Interview by Ian Gittins, Wonderland, November 2009
"I wake up, every day is a daydream/Everything in my life ain't what it seems..."– 'Bonkers', Dizzee Rascal ...
Fall, The: The Fall: Funfair For The Common Man
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, March 1990
IN A CHEAP INDIAN RESTAURANT IN LONDON'S BRICK LANE Mark Smith's eyes begin to glint. His bony figure leans forward and stiffens. From deep in ...
Fall, The, Inspiral Carpets: Insprial Carpets and Mark E. Smith: Manchester United
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, February 1994
Inspiral Carpets team-up with Mark E. Smith! For a one-off collaboration called ‘I Want You’! Psychedelic optimism meets psychedelic miserabilism! ...
Florence and the Machine: Florence and The Machine: Mental Machine Music
Interview by Ian Gittins, Wonderland, November 2009
POP SHOULD ALWAYS be poetic, not prosaic. ...
Al Green: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, June 2007
AL GREEN IS the last of the American southern soul giants of the 1960s and 70s, a survivor where Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and Sam ...
Grizzly Bear: Hyde Park, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, June 2010
NOW IN ITS SECOND YEAR, the Serpentine Sessions festival is the absolute obverse of Glastonbury's sprawling eclecticism. With audience numbers capped firmly at 3,000, this ...
Elton John: How Sir Elton Recovered His Cool
Comment by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, 2004
WHEN THE VERY first psychedelic rock star, William Blake, declared that the fool who persists in his folly shall become wise, he hit on a ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Wonderland, September 2010
THE SINGER ON BALANCING MUSIC, MOTHERHOOD, CLUBBING AND COOKING ...
Ke$ha: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London ****
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, December 2010
IT'S EASY TO dismiss Ke$ha as a Primark take on Lady Gaga, but such an appraisal disregards the fact that 23-year-old Kesha Sebert this year ...
Alicia Keys: "I love Chopin… He's my dawg": Alicia Keys
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, November 2001
Stevie loves her, Oprah's after her and Prince is always on the phone. As Alicia Keys prepares to storm the UK charts, Ian Gittins meets ...
Kills, The: The Kills: Jamie Hince
Interview by Ian Gittins, Man About Town, Spring 2009
THE QUIET Primrose Hill pub is tucked away down a discreet side street, and that is just the way Jamie Hince likes it. It looks ...
Marilyn Manson: Mechanical Animals (NOTHING) ****
Review by Ian Gittins, Q, November 1998
Return of the Thin White Berk. ...
Mötley Crüe: Ban this Sixx filth!
Report by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, October 2007
Thought Mötley Crüe's biog The Dirt was the ultimate rock read? Pah! Ian Gittins helped bassist Nikki Sixx write his gruesome journals. Those of a ...
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, May 2005
I HAVE JUST SPENT two weeks on the road with Mötley Crüe. Our sweep through Canada and the US Midwest took in Edmonton, Des Moines, ...
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, March 1994
M PEOPLE are the darlings of hip clubbers and pop kids alike, recent Brits winners, and THE crossover band from club culture who can simply ...
My Bloody Valentine: The Excellence of Ecstasy
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, January 1988
WHERE SHALL WE BEGIN? "When we first started we had this image thing, right, all Sixties haircuts and really setting out to do the pop ...
N*E*R*D, Pharrell Williams: Pharrell Williams: Neptune Rising
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Man About Town, Winter 2010
PHARRELL Vs THE FASHIONISTAS ...
New York Dolls: The New York Dolls: 'Before Us, There Was Nothing'
Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, July 2006
Punk pioneers the New York Dolls imploded in a haze of heroin three decades ago. Now they're back – and this time, finds Ian Gittins, ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Man About Town, Spring 2011
WHAT DOES the face of Los Angeles music look like? Back in the day, when Guns N' Roses and Mötley Crüe stalked the earth (which, ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, June 2002
TWO YEARS AGO, Paul Oakenfold was getting profoundly bored. The original post-acid house superstar DJ, known to friends and relatives as ‘Oakey’ and to the ...
On-U Sound System, Adrian Sherwood: On-U Sound: Circus Attractions
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, April 1991
This week, the On-U Sound takes its show on the road with 36 acts and five hours of murderous rhythm every night. IAN GITTINS joined ...
William Orbit: 'People Will See My Heart And Soul'
Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, May 2007
POP MUSIC has been good to William Orbit. Two decades at the top of his game as one of dance music's leading producers and remixers ...
Ozzy Osbourne: Meet the Osbournes
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, June 2002
YOU KNOW THAT embarrassing scenario where you go round to visit a married couple and they end up having an unholy ruck in front of ...
Pixies, The: The Pixies Facing The Fire Squad
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, November 1990
The pixies are the best band on the planet. Discuss. ...
Plan B: 'Strickland Banks may be soul, but it's still real life': Plan B
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, December 2010
THE INTERNATIONAL lingua franca of Christmas TV is fromage and France's leading commercial channel, TF1, is no exception. Having arrived in Paris on a lunchtime ...
Pop Will Eat Itself, Nasty Rox, Inc.: Pop Will Eat Itself/Nasty Rox Inc: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, February 1989
NASTY ROX INC look like slobs but have a beat which cuts it. Their rock/hip hop amalgam makes all the right moves, yet never manages ...
Queens Of The Stone Age: Monarchs of Rock: Queens of the Stone Age
Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, October 2002
"I’VE BEEN CHASING my tail trying to have a good time on this tour," grumbles Josh Homme, the towering 6’ 4" frontman of Queens Of ...
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, June 1992
THEY'RE ALL elbows and angst, are Radiohead. They want to gouge their mark so deep into us yet don't truly know How To Do It. ...
Radiohead: The Story Of Tchocky
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Q, Summer 2003
ON FEBRUARY 27, 2002, Radiohead designer Stanley Donwood mounted the stage at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, to receive a Grammy for "Best Recording Package" ...
Rage Against the Machine: Finsbury Park, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, June 2010
LAST CHRISTMAS a Facebook campaign powered Californian rap-metal veterans Rage Against the Machine to the top of the singles chart, pipping The X Factor victor ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, The: The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Electric Ballroom, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, May 1988
AS SIMON Reynolds said last time they tripped over here, The Red Hot Chili Peppers are totally WRONG. This alone makes them great. The mix ...
Salt 'N' Pepa: Sat 'N' Pepa: The Showstoppers
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, November 1988
'To Know Us Is To Love Us' claim Salt 'n' Pepa, one of rap's most unlikely success stories, whose A Salt With A Deadly Pepa ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, October 2002
THE WESTIN RIO MAR hotel in Puerto Rico is a textbook playground of the rich and famous. Way beyond merely luxurious, the baroque décor is ...
Shamen, The: The Shamen: In Gorbachev We Trust (Demon)
Review by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, February 1989
THE SHAMEN may indeed, as Steve Sutherland said, be a band whose time has come. For over three years now they've been drilling away, obsessed ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, January 1995
1995 is set to be SLEEPER's year. The latest leading lights in the ongoing resurgence of Britpop brightened up last year with a string of ...
Slipknot: Meet'n'Greet in Glasgow: Slipknot
Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, February 2002
IT'S VALENTINE'S SAY afternoon in Glasgow and a strange kind of love is afoot. Outside the city’s Virgin Megastore, a tearful 13-year-old boy is gasping ...
Soft Cell: The Tainted Life of Soft Cell
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Gittins, Q, 2004
IN 1973 A 16-YEAR-OLD Marc Almond travelled from his hometown of Southport to Liverpool to see David Bowie on his Aladdin Sane tour. Having suffered ...
Soul II Soul: Songs In The Key Of Life
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, December 1989
WITH A STRING OF SUCCESSFUL SINGLES AND A STUNNING DEBUT ALBUM, SOUL II SOUL HAVE SPEARHEADED THE DANCE REVIVAL OF THE LATE-EIGHTIES AND LOOK LIKE ...
Spinal Tap: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, July 2009
NO MATTER how witty they may be, few satires or novelty songs repay repeated listening. So how come a packed Wembley is rocking to the ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, May 2008
Jason Pierce of Spiritualized gives Ian Gittins his perfect pop prescription ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Gittins, The National (UAE), May 2008
JASON PIERCE is the great unsung hero of British rock music. As the singer, songwriter and philosophical pulse of his epic rock band, Spiritualized, he ...
Tanita Tikaram: Say Halo Wave Goodbye
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, February 1991
AS EVERY HAIRDRESSER worth their shears will tell you, a radical change of hairstyle usually heralds an equally radical shift of persona. Tanita Tikaram's new ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, Melody Maker, March 1988
"BOBBY Maggot was a big attorney/Through the courtroom down to hell he'd journey/Baldheaded piece of garbage that he was/He'll defend you if your money's honest/Do ...
Robbie Williams: Q Icons: Robbie Williams
Profile by Ian Gittins, Q, 2004
EVERY BRITISH comprehensive school class has its in-house clown. Tirelessly hyperactive and compulsively subversive, he (and it always is a he) leaves at 16 in ...
List of genre pieces
How To Beat The Difficult Second Album Syndrome
Comment by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, January 2007
SOPHOMORE SLUMP Or Comeback Of The Year? asked Fall Out Boy in a brilliantly prescient track on their 2005 album From Under the Cork Tree, ...
Report by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, September 2006
What do Pete Doherty, Justin Hawkins and Keane's Tom Chaplin have in common? All have been in rehab recently, some for the first time. But ...
Single Vision: Fierce Panda Records
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Gittins, Guardian, The, February 2009
THE NEW WAVE OF NEW WAVE was never really much cop. It was an early 1990s music press-concocted punk revival scene based around a handful ...
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