Ian Penman
(CUTS TRACKS & BRUISES//59-77-03)
1959
Born: Wiltshire, amid the shadows of strange neolithic statuary.
1960-69
Scotland, Middle East, Africa, Beirut, Cyprus.
1970-78
Norfolk
(‘Anti-climax? Wherever did you get that, herr Professor...’)
EARLY PIVOTs
Roy Orbison
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
Jimi Hendrix esp ‘Voodoo Chile’
Roxy Music
Little Feat
Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Bootsy et al
Augustus Pablo, Big Youth, Culture, et al
circa mid-1970s
First published: RAF base ‘free paper’. A ‘Summer 45s’ round-up, inc. Millie Jackson, Swamp Dogg, The Jimmy Castor Bunch & vrs. impossibly obscure Deep Soul import 7"s. No copies extant. Not recommissioned.
circa 1976-77
Threatened with expulsion from Grammar School for thoughtless graffito. Literally thoughtless: the oxymoronic ‘ANARCHY RULES’. Also, for endangering prospects of two bigger ‘brighter’ boys: marooning them overnight on Liverpool St station the night before life-determining exams. Well, it was a LITTLE FEAT concert. How cool is that for your first gig and a lifetime memory which most Mojo writers would kill for?
IP breezes "A" in Art a-level ‘Representation of a Doo-wop trio, after Juan Gris’ and is due to attend Art School; deeply suspicious of Conceptual Art then prevalent, takes ‘year out’, working part time (and wholly Pro Plus) in a precinct jewellry store while hitch-hiking round country to Northern Soul nites and Punk gigs. Passed over in NME’s infamous ‘Hip Young Gunslinger’ round-up after submitting breathlessly laudatory review of Van Morrison’s wondrous (but achingly un-Hip) Veedon Fleece. Persistence is all: submits Live reviews of, inter alia, Blondie/Television, Heatwave, Tapper Zukie and Wire. Taken on as NME’s Norfolk stringer - like, right, Norfolk: WHERE THE HOT PUNK ACTION IS.
Autumn 1977
First NME review published: Only Ones/Stranglers, Cambridge Corn Exchange. (In hindsight: how odd that IP’s baptismal words should hymn the fey, drug-blitzed, overly literate & Romantic-dysfunctional Peter Perrett.)
August 1978
Transplants to London permanently on 19th birthday.
Same night:... Annette Peacock at the Lyceum, promoting X-Dreams. Sigh.
1978-82; 1983-1985: NME
Gets a kiss from Grace Jones.
Gets drunk with Paul Schrader.
Gets a kiss from Pat Phoenix.
Gets VERY VERY drunk with Nicolas Roeg.
Spring 1985
"The Roeg text was a demented cut-up of quotation, a dialectically unbalanced construction that refused to deliver comfortable Poalroids of its subject. It was, in itself, an artwork. A portrait in the form of a resignation note. The editors agreed, published half the piece and sent Penman his P45." Sinclair
Undated apocrypha
At pre-publication editorial meeting for the nascent Q, in which house style is set, the work of Penman-Morley is held up as everything Q is definitively NOT to be. A visibly choked Penman later tells Martin Bashir this is the proudest moment of his life.
1982-[present?]
"He was rumoured to be working on a magnum opus (he started the rumour), a book of essays on Billie Holiday and the blues." Sinclair
1983
Infamous CUTS TRACKS & BRUISES outline is rejected by Routledge Kegan Paul. Since when this (far-ranging, visionary, deeply flawed, etc) text has circulated in samizdat form across a series of computers owned by its author.
1985-86
Any takers? All/any info please contact IP at address below.
1986
Freelance work for:
The Face, Arena, Tatler, Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Sunday Correspondent, New Statesman. REpublished: Japan, America, Germany.
mid-late 80s
3rd best interview of all time: Charlotte Rampling, Arena.
7th best night out of all time: in Paris, w/ Nick Kent, to see Happy Mondays.
late 80s
Powerful 80s uber-agent nearly succeeds in bringing together IP and BRYAN FERRY for "official biography" made in some twisted Touch of Evil type hell. 1980s come and go with no sign of any such book. Phew.
early 90s
Resumes music writing for The Wire under inspired/deluded editorship of Mark Sinker.
early 90s
IP/Chris Petit submit proposal to BBC for (far ranging, visionary, deeply flawed, etc) music documentary series, working title REMIX CULTURE. 90s come and go with no sign of any such non-performance non-biography based music documentary. Phew... say Q, Mojo, Jools Holland et al.
Returns in earnest to music writing at The Wire [vrs harassed editors, passim].
Freelance work: Guardian, Harpers & Queen, Sight & Sound, Esquire, GQ, Dazed & Confused, Modern Review, Ikon.
1996
2nd proudest moment of life: Out-cools a visibly shaken Lou Reed, one-upping him with knowledge & possession of rare Icepick Slim spoken word CD.
1998
Publication of IP compilation: Vital Signs (Serpent's Tail). Reviews 98% positive -
"... whenever he sounds like any other rock critic, you must remind yourself that this stylist’s been tapping away since the early '80s. So it’s all his fault; but what separates him from his mimics at Time Out, or the publicists who call him the ‘coolest cultural critic on the planet’, is that he doesn’t just sound hard, he thinks hard."
Tom Payne, Observer
" Full of contradictions and witty one-liners, Penman uses language as an art form, playing with puns, synonyms, repetition, and punctuation for added effect. [...] Two decades of politics, music and pop culture with a whip-smart wit and wisdom that draws you in and doesn’t let go."
Julia Kenna, Rolling Stone
"Penman explores this post-publicity, post-exploitation ghost world better than anybody ... an exercise in time travel, a posthumous confession."
Iain Sinclair, London Review of Books
... etc; except for lukewarm reviews in The Daily Telegraph and ... The Wire.
1998
Nicest interviewee of all time aw gee shucks you don’t have to sign and give me that Bob really you don’t aw ...: Robert Frank.
2000
Wire article on ‘microphonics’ leads to invitation to lecture at Cinesonic conference, Melbourne. Original (far ranging, visionary, deeply flawed, etc) conceptual presentation abandoned when stereo speakers imprinted with the faces of Martin Heidegger and Marcus Garvey prove unavailable.
2000-2002
Lead reviewer, UNCUT; until contretemps involving insufficiently ass-kissy (but far ranging, visionary, etc) Elvis Costello review.
2003
Uncut wins Best Consumer Magazine award. Go figure.
hEXcerpts
‘The Shattered Glass’ in
Zoot Suits & Second Hand Dresses ed. Angela McRobbie [MacMillan 1989]
"Garvey’s Ghost > K L A N G! < Heidegger’s Geist" in:
Cinesonic 3 ed. Philip Brophy [AFTRS 2000]
‘ON THE MIC: How Amplification Changed The Voice for Good’ in: Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music [WIRE/Continuum 2002]
paperCUTS
Vital Signs [Serpents Tail 1998]
List of articles in the library by artist
Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978
AND YES, this unfortunately is where it separates. 999's second album – always a fateful thing – and the illusory packaging hides a regression. ...
Adam & The Ants, X-Ray Spex: X-Ray Spex, Adam & The Ants, The Automatics: The Roundhouse, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, May 1978
AS MS. POLY'S strychnine air-raid voice shreds the encore and all present, the audience front-line snaps. ...
Joan Armatrading: Steppin' Out (A&M)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1979
THE AUTHOR of the song is individualised out of all proportion in rock culture. The singer/songwriter subject is built up in such a way that ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1979
IT'S EASY TO feel alienated by certain aspects of reggae, not the least of which is the idolatry afforded it by impressionable whites: 'Milky Bar ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978
POOP GO the wizened wastrels! The starry, clammy curtain rises once again, and here they are, still waiting. ...
David Bowie: Brechtfast In Bed
Report by Ian Penman, NME, March 1982
IN BAAL, DAVID Bowie finally shed his skin and played the part of someone else. ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George and the War On Pop
Essay by Ian Penman, NME, December 1984
2003 note: I don’t know about this: "this" being the original 2,000 words I handed in at the very last minute to a poor, frazzled ...
Tim Buckley: T.B. Sheets: In Praise of Tim Buckley
Retrospective by Ian Penman, Wire, The, April 1994
TIM BUCKLEY was small - "this little man," as he said in one of his slow sly seducer's songs - he was small, and white, ...
Tim Buckley: The Dream Belongs To Me (Manifesto)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, July 2001
NO COMPILATION HAS ever been adequate to the task of representing Tim Buckley in his full groove, strangeness and charm; this is a man responsible ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
Grrrrnrrhhhh!!! Repressed reviewer laments a bird and her bush ...
John Cale: Music for the Last Day
Interview by Ian Penman, Wire, The, July 1994
JOHN CALE IS rock's international traveller, his work a trans-continental drift of moons and maps, seas and seachange, envoys and ennui. From his early (unfashionable) ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, July 1978
Reach Out, We'll Be There (Ha, Ha – Fooled You) ...
James Chance: Save The Last Chance For Me!
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, June 1981
Sax and drugs and contorted soul – Ian Penman meets his hero in another instalment of conversations with James Chance. London 1981. ...
Clash, The: The Clash: Black'n White Drop Outasite
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
The Clash: Roxy Theatre, Harlesden ...
Elvis Costello: Eivis Costello and the Attractions at West Runton
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, March 1980
BETTER put it all in present tenses... ...
Elvis Costello: 10 Bloody Marys And 10 How's Your Fathers
Review by Ian Penman, NME, April 1984
10 AND 10 is 20 postaged stamps of the left-out-of-mainstream Costello: mislaid or temporarily missing 'B'-side moves, free 45s that got lost on the Press, ...
Julie Covington: Julie Covington
Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
MOVING BACK from stage to a studio, Ms Covington neatly avoids the cliches offered by the potentially drear and damaging Solo Album. ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, December 1984
WHEN, EXACTLY, did this creature stop aspiring to be like Bo Diddley, and want to turn into Barbara Streisand? ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, June 1981
Make my funk the D-funkt ...
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. ...
Doors, The: The Doors: Bright Midnight/Live In America (Elektra)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
ONE BRIGHT MIDNIGHT: 2 songs from 1969 & 14 songs from 1970, a moment of magickal cusp, a genuine celebration, a true revelation, a breathtaking ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, November 1980
"To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, ...
Bob Dylan: Love And Theft (Columbia)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, October 2001
ON 1997’s Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan sounded like a man coming to accounts with himself, with the fact that anything from this point ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978
"I'M NOT really interested in the quality of the film, what they furnish is an excuse to do some music...they're areas where I can experiment ...
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, August 1978
REEL-TO-REEL life: patt-ur stagg-urs on... In bu-tween the s-o-n-g-s... ...
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 ...
Fatboy Slim: Halfway Between The Gutter And The Stars
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Can't Cook, Won't Cook: Macy Gray guest slot aside, disappointing follow-up to You've Come A Long Way, Baby ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, December 1978
THE "MOTHERSHIP" arrives. Everybody gets on out of it and has a "party". And I dance. And slump. And dance and slump. ...
Vincent Gallo: Recordings Of Music For Films (Warp)
Review by Ian Penman, Wire, The, May 2002
NOTE THAT STRICTLY utile title. Here we find not vanity project Muzak for 'imaginary' films, projected by some vain musclehead Hollyweird jerk-off with more friends ...
Marvin Gaye: Here, My Dear (Tamla Motown)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, January 1979
IF THE LANGUAGE is clearly familiar, the filling clear, the concept perhaps a little cloying then at least, at length, the soul is back to ...
Emmylou Harris: Anthology (Warner Archives/Rhino)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
ALTHOUGH RARELY FORWARDED as a "woman in music" icon, it’s hard to think of a more exemplary career - male or female, consistent and daring ...
PJ Harvey: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Self-produced sixth album is curate's egg ...
Heatwave: West Runton Pavilion, Norfolk
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, June 1978
Waiting for the Getdown gestalt ...
Michael Jackson: Imitation Of Life
Essay by Ian Penman, Modern Review, The, Summer 1993
Michael the archangel listen/Michael don't you see?/If you are on the side of good/Now where does that leave me?Paddy McAloon, 'Michael'When I was 17 I ...
Japan, David Sylvian: David Sylvian: Melancholy Baby
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, January 1982
MELANCHOLY PROPS up his head and whispers, half to himself and half to me... ...
John McLaughlin & The One Truth Band: Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978
THIS WAS A celebration of John McLaughlin's 25th anniversary as a guitar player — an event similarly rnarked by the recent Electric Guitarist album, which ...
Grace Jones: The Savoy, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, August 1981
THE FANFARE hardly pronounced itself...when out folds a larger-than-our-life toy monkey with a grass skirt on its bandy thighs and a big tin drum, swinging ...
Grace Jones: The State Of Grace
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, December 1980
GRACE JONES. Grace Jones is a nice lady who loves Japanese food. But how does the name Grace Jones figure in your code book? ...
Rickie Lee Jones at the Jazz Cafe
Live Review by Ian Penman, Guardian, The, February 2001
RICKIE LEE JONES is something of an anomaly. Her latest album, It's Like This, has just been nominated for a Grammy – but how many ...
Rickie Lee Jones: The Magazine (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1984
For song, as sung by you, is ... notWooing of something finally attained.Far other is the breath of real singing.An aimless breath. A stirring in ...
Essay by Ian Penman, NME, July 1982
IS EVERYTHING AS wonderful as it seems in the current reiteration of the Song? ...
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Mixed bag of tricks from latest Electronica whiz ...
Fela Kuti: Fela Anikulapo Kuti & Africa 70: Hippodrome, Paris
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, March 1981
FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI is probably the unlikeliest of candidates to win the dubious honour of being the Great African Dance's Bob Marley – popularizer to ...
Shane MacGowan and Simon Napier-Bell: The Sound And The Fury
Book Review by Ian Penman, Guardian, The, April 2001
Black Vinyl, White Powder, Simon Napier-Bell (390pp, Ebury Press £16.99)A Drink With Shane MacGowan, Victoria Mary Clarke and Shane MacGowan (360pp, Sidgwick & Jackson £15.99) ...
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, August 1978
MAGAZINE, MYTHS AND MIRAGES ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley & The Wailers: Babylon By Bus
Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
ALL THE points are easily made. You have your join-the-dots special Christmas present package. Bob Marley and The Wailers skank in and out the Western ...
John Martyn: London School of Economics, London
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
YOU DON'T need me at all – you know what happened, what will happen. ...
Mercury Rev: All Is Dream (V2)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, September 2001
THIS IS AN AFTER record in all senses: after loving the highs and lows and then learning to disavow that love, after going through the ...
Joni Mitchell: Shadows and Light
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1980
LIKE, A Rolling Stone picnic or something more in touch with these headachey contemporary days? ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
JEAN-PAUL Sartre took mescaline once, to prove to himself that he wasn't necessarily the institution people thought he was, and as a result became convinced ...
Robert Palmer: The Deb's Delight Takes FRIGHT!
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, November 1980
THREE TIMES I got out of my warm bath to answer the telephone. The first call was a few seconds of silence and down. The ...
Annette Peacock: A Rock & Role Alternative
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, September 1978
"I THINK what happened was, after I left New York all the anger and the toughness and the hostility seemed to dissipate – and in ...
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
"Every night before I go to sleep/Find a ticket, win a lottery/Scoop the pearls up from the sea/Cash them in and..." ...
Pere Ubu: The Art of Walking (Rough Trade)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, August 1980
1. PERE UBU IS haywire, rudimentary, and patiently documentary. It operates on a yield of snared and shared rhythms, on symptoms that have been stitched ...
Pink Floyd: The Wall (Harvest)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, December 1979
FOREMEN OF the apocalypse Pink Floyd are still alive, four lost men in a popular music eclipse. ...
Iggy Pop: Pure Pop……For Iggy People
Live Review by Ian Penman, NME, June 1978
Iggy Pop: Music Machine, London ...
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 ...
Lou Reed: Life After The Leather Jacket
Interview by Ian Penman, Guardian, The, February 1996
MY ORIGINAL IDEA vis a vis this whole Lou interview situ and how to break his notoriously Siberian icepack reticence was to kick things off ...
Residents, The: The Residents: Nibbles! (Virgin)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, July 1979
MEET THE Residents!!! ...
Rockers Revenge, Arthur Baker: Rockers Revenge: The Big Bang Theory
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, September 1982
Or... how a crate of records fell onto producer Arthur Baker's head and created a new jazz music and the beginning of Rockers Revenge ...
Runaways, The: The Runaways: And Now…The Runaways (Mercury)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, January 1979
THE TERMS are at once familiar and bizarre, charged with meaning and strangely vacuous: 'street,' 'action,' 'hungry and hot,' 'rock 'n' roll,' 'teenage,' 'weekend,' 'queen.' ...
Scritti Politti: Reflections On In(ter)dependence: Scritti Politti
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
MEET SCRITTI Politti: three or four young musicians (one is a floating member), and equally important, a large circle of close friends who provide help, ...
Skids, The: The Skids: Schizophrenia On Skid Row
Report and Interview by Ian Penman, NME, November 1980
"I've no desire to push myself into being a media figure. I'm quite happy with my cameras and my wife and my guitars."– Stuart Adamson ...
Slaughter and the Dogs: Do It Dog Style
Review by Ian Penman, NME, July 1978
UNFORTUNATELY, A posthumous debut album. Quite something, not even the anti-Christ (Sex Pistols) managed to pull that off. But it is a rather sad, inevitably ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, NME, November 1978
WHAT HAS rock and roll got to do with poetry? What is a poetess doing with rock and roll? What am I doing reading and ...
Soft Boys, The: The Soft Boys: A Can Of Bees (Two Crabs)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, May 1979
TAKE THE "mystery" out of rock'n'roll and you're left with an evaluation of current rock'n'roll that relies upon the recognition of traditional principles or objects. ...
Spiritualized: Let It Come Down (Spaceman)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, October 2001
"I WON’T GET TO Heaven the state I'm in," weeps Jason Pierce, but it sounds more like "I won't get as far as the Corn ...
Donna Summer: Cats Without Claws (Warner Bros)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1984
LOOKING DARKLY into her TV's eyes and chastizing it as media plasma, Donna sings of its ruptured picture: "From the next apartment we hear music/Bleeding ...
David Sylvian, Japan: David Sylvian: Everything And Nothing
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, November 2000
COLLECTED OUEVRE of Japan's finest ...
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
Review by Ian Penman, NME, October 1984
WHAT, WITHOUT wandering, is here? A company move, accompanying live movie (directed by Jonathan Demme), a record – another live LP, so soon? Where's the ...
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. ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, 1979
ROCK AND ROLL survives on an illusion of dynamism built upon critical inertia, upon endlessly repeated truths such as the oft-heard oppositions of 'old/new wave' ...
Tricky: [the Phantoms of] TRICKNOLOGY [versus a Politics of Authenticity]
Essay by Ian Penman, Wire, The, March 1995
"Machine technology is a type of transformation." Martin Heidegger ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1978
The Further Decline And Fall Of The Western World ...
Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones (Island)
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1983
NOW, BEFORE I step before you again to review some music, and then have to face an old familiar tune (videlicet: guilty of obscurantism), I ...
Tom Waits: The Beat Buff Speed Poet Home Booze Hayseed
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, March 1981
Or: the ten piece Tom Waits jigsaw puzzle As manufactured by Ian Penman ...
Was (Not Was): Was Not Was: That Was The Freak That Was
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, May 1984
O Dialectic, says the philosopher, when he notices that perhaps the true philosophy laughs at philosophy. ...
Interview by Ian Penman, NME, October 1978
THIS YEAR'S Weather Report is twice as nice as last year's. And doubly dodgy. ...
Review by Ian Penman, NME, September 1978
STUDIO TAN drops into the industry's autumn orgy unheralded. ...
Frank Zappa: From Z to A and Back Again, or: QUANTITIES AND LEER
Comment by Ian Penman, Wire, The, July 1995
I CANNOT FOR the pop life of me see why anyone over the age of 17 would ever want to listen to Frank Zappa again, ...
List of genre pieces
Drugs In Rock Culture: Don’t Try This At Home
Essay by Ian Penman, Guardian, The, August 1996
TAKING DRUGS CHANGES things. It changes your blood stream and brain waves and bank balance; your heart rate and slang of choice and the circumference ...
Ginsberg's Flannel And Other Stories
Book Review by Ian Penman, Guardian, The, October 2002
In the Sixties, Barry Miles, 322pp, Jonathan Cape, £17.99 ...
Various Artists: Back To Black (Universal)
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, May 2001
Ten-CD, 220-track History Of Black Music behemoth put together by Morgan 'Streetsounds' Khan in tandem with 35-strong industry committee ...
back to LIBRARY
Best Databases: RBP is Runner-up in Best Niche category
Video: Johnny Marr talks about Rock's Backpages
download eBooks and audio interviews
RBP on Spotify: The Absolute Best o' Burt
RBP Album Club, June 13th: Miki Berenyi and Lucy O'Brien celebrate a Blondie classic
Essential Listening: Mick Gold meets Patti Smith in '76
Essential Reading: RBP's awesome Ozzy anthology
Essential Reading: Nina Antonia introduces her new poetry collection
RBP Album Club, July 11th: Nick Hornby and Nick Coleman celebrate Southside Johnny's debut