Jonh Ingham
Jonh Ingham was one of the key writers on rock and punk in the mid-to-late '70s. His pieces on the Sex Pistols and others for Sounds introduced countless readers to the emerging punk scene. He currently works for Genie Internet.
List of articles in the library by artist
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Hit Parader, November 1975
FIVE YEARS AGO one of the most mindless, repetitious, quintessential singles thumped up the world record charts in double-quick time. It was called 'Neanderthal Man'. ...
10cc: How Dare You! (Phonogram)***
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, January 1976
THIS ALBUM really bugs me. So much so that I've spent the better part of a morning throwing away half-typed sheets of paper. The trouble ...
Aerosmith: Toys In The Attic (CBS) (36:59).
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, August 1975
AS AEROSMITH race through 'Toys In The Attic', first track on the platter, all raging guitars, quaint lyrics about 'leaving the things that are real ...
Alvin Lee: Alvin Thrills the U.S. Army Freaks
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, December 1974
ALVIN LEE is a deceptive character. He's never really worked at making his presence felt in the way Rod Stewart or Elton John have done, ...
Kevin Ayers: Odd Ditties (Harvest) ****
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, February 1976
PERHAPS THE most apt album title of this or any year. Kevin Ayers has a great penchant for odd ditties, and these songs are decidedly ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, March 1976
IN HIS last, rather desperate sounding album, Kevin Ayers really hit the nail on the head. In the middle of the first song, weightily titled ...
Band, The: The Band: Northern Lights, Southern Cross (Capitol)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, December 1975
THE BAND don't rush things – this is their first album of original material in four years – and to review this after having listened ...
Bay City Rollers, The: Bay City Rollers: Flattened
Comment by Jonh Ingham, Creem, November 1975
THE ROLLERS SNEAKED up on everybody. The astute observer would have first noticed their presence two and a half years ago when their initial success ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys #1: The Perfect Wave
Discography by Jonh Ingham, NME, March 1973
"I love to make records that my friends like to hear." – BRIAN WILSON ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys #2: The Exiles Return
Discography by Jonh Ingham, NME, March 1973
THE SECOND and concluding part of Jonh Ingham's retrospective look at the Beach Boys covers the '66 to '73 period. ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: 15 Big Ones
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
THE FIRST new Beach Boys studio album in three years. Fifteen big ones celebrating 15 years of Beach Boys on their 23rd album (not counting ...
Beach Boys, The: The Beach Boys: Hello Bruce, this is Bruce, Bruce
Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, December 1974
GIVE BRUCE Johnston credit; he isn't put off his chosen path easily. ...
Chuck Berry: Hail, Hail, Chuck Berry!
Essay by Jonh Ingham, Jonh Ingham's Blog, October 2007
"If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry."– John Lennon ...
David Bowie: Station to Station (RCA)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, January 1976
IN MY PHYSICS textbook at school was an amazing photo of two galaxies colliding. Just imagine being on a planet in a system in either ...
David Bowie: Central London Polytechnic, London
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, July 1972
"YES, I'M DAVID BOWIE. These are the Spiders from Mars. And we're the slickest show in town." ...
Brinsley Schwarz: God Save The Grateful Dead, Or Someone Like Them
Report by Jonh Ingham, Creem, 1975
Happy doing what we're doing,Happy that we're doing it right.Happy doing what we're doing,Happy that the feeling is right. ...
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
ABOVE MANCHESTER'S Free Trade Hall is a little known auditorium, capable of holding some 400, cunningly named the Lesser Hall. Until the Sex Pistols discovered ...
Clash, The: The Clash: Barbarellas, Birmingham
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, November 1976
WEDNESDAY HAD been booked as Punk Night at Barbarellas, an excuse, if nothing else, for the club deejay to fall in love with the sound ...
Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen: Hot Licks, Cold Steel and Truckers Favorites (Paramount)
Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, March 1973
IT WAS like driving through an infinite oven, the sun dancing in cool water-mirages across the four-lane asphalt. Wayne wiped the sweat from his brow. ...
Doctors of Madness, The: Doctors Of Madness: Late Night Movies, All Night Brainstorm (Polydor) ***
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, March 1976
IF NOTHING ELSE, this record proves that you can't know anything personal about the people involved if you're to take this whole rock-noir terminal guttercrawl ...
Doctors of Madness, The: The Doctors of Madness
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, December 1975
PORTSMOUTH Poly wasn't Saturday night's top hotspot by any means, but then it seemed as well hidden as El Dorado. Still, an evening's pleasure topped ...
Dr. Feelgood: Dr Feelgood: Malpractice (United Artists) (36.08)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1975
FROM THE speed-crazed paranoid stares on the cover to the buzz-bomb guitar attacks inside, one question demands to be answered: would you let your parents ...
Dr. Feelgood: The /almost collected thoughts of Dr. Feelgood
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1975
DR FEELGOOD: Wilko Johnson – guitar; Lee Brilleaux – vocals; John B Sparks – bass; The Figure – drums. They grew up on Canvey Island in ...
Ducks Deluxe: Man in the Moon, London
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, February 1975
THE DUCKS ARE one of the few '70s bands that have the power to redefine rock and make it a vibrant life force once more, ...
John Entwistle, Who, The: John Entwistle: Is This The Right Man For Mayor of Acton?
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, February 1976
'Momma's got a squeeze box she wears on her chestAnd when Daddy comes home he never gets no rest Because she's playing all nightAnd the ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, January 1972
AS FAR AS AMERICA is concerned, the Small Faces were notable for one single, 'Itchycoo Park', and one album, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake; the former ...
Fanny: Unnnghhh! Grunt, Slurp…
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, November 1974
LETS BE SEXIST for a coupla paragraphs. ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
THE LIGHT caught him in bas-relief. Under the scuffed, light brown leather jacket a light blue shirt with creases pressed into the shoulders and rolled ...
Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together (Atlantic) Import***
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1976
IT'S HARD to review this album without sounding as artsy-fartsy as the man in question. I mean, I don't know much about Art but I ...
Flamin' Groovies, The: Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action (Sire) ***
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
SEVERAL WEEKS ago I reviewed a French import of the above mentioned Groovies album, complaining about the terrible sound. It is my pleasure to announce ...
Flamin' Groovies, The: The Flamin' Groovies: Grease; Alive Forever! (More Grease)
Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, February 1975
SOME OF YOU may remember The Flamin' Groovies. ...
Flamin' Groovies, The: The Flamin' Groovies: Shake Some Action (Philips) [Import]**
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, April 1976
IT'S HARD to imagine that the Groovies are ten years old, or that it's four years since they tried to enliven us in Britain. But ...
Aretha Franklin at Fillmore West
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Creem, June 1971
BILL GRAHAM'S Fillmore West. At one end is a fairly large stage, the sides littered with sound equipment. Behind it hangs the light show scrim. ...
Roy Harper: Poetry In Motion With The One Eyed Giant
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, June 1975
ROY HARPER reckons Roger Waters listens to Valentine at least three times a week. He also reckons he's influenced Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. If ...
Roy Harper: The Original Hippie
Report by Jonh Ingham, NME, February 1973
"I'LL COME back and see you, but I'm not getting smashed. I'm 24 and feeling it.""That's all right Robert, neither am I. We'll stand in ...
Roy Harper: Stormcock in Heat, That's Roy Harper
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, December 1972
ROY HARPER WAS holidaying in Norway when word of the movie reached his management. It was his first holiday in three years, and all they ...
Hold Steady, The: The Hold Steady: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, July 2, 2007
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Rock's Backpages, July 2007
I FORGET WHICH sexy mega rock god said it, but it was someone suitably svelte and saturnine who said, "Anyone who tells you they got ...
Ian Hunter, Mott The Hoople: Ian Hunter: Through the Glasses Darkly
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Creem, August 1975
THOSE SHADES! Oceans of mid-Atlantic green plastic bounded by translucent brown frames, black electrical tape wound in large balls around the tips to protect the ...
Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, November 1974
HONESTLY, HAVING even to think about Jeff Airplane/ Starship/whatever these days is getting to be a bore. ...
Jethro Tull: The Forum, Los Angeles CA
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Creem, October 1971
Rock As Electric Wallpaper ...
Kursaal Flyers, The: Kursaal Flyers: Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, March 1976
IT'S AMAZING the difference a moustache makes. ...
Kursaal Flyers, The: The Kursaal Flyers: The Great Artiste (UK) ****
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, February 1976
THE KURSAALS have always had a way with visuals and image – Paul Shuttleworth's background in commercial art no doubt. Just check the ad for ...
Ronnie Lane: Seedy Lad Discusses Tent Collapse
Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, March 1975
SOMEWHERE IN the hinterlands of this once-proud isle, in a medieval pub which has beams wallpapered with matchbooks proclaiming the existence of "Joe's Cafe", Ronnie ...
Led Zeppelin: Jimmy Page: Technological Gypsy
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, March 1976
'Aleister Crowley is the great misunderstood genius of the 20th century.' ...
Led Zeppelin: Houses Of The Holy
Review by Jonh Ingham, Let It Rock, June 1973
THE WAY I SEE IT, if you've been a Led Zep fan since day one, and think that 'Whole Lotta Love' is the cat's pyjamas, ...
Led Zeppelin: Presence (Swan Song)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, April 1976
AFTER THIS PLATTER had spun incessantly for an afternoon on the office phonogram I asked a non-Zep fan what he thought."Oh, it's okay I guess. ...
Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same (Swan Song)**
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1976
THREE YEARS to get a live album out? Three years??? I mean – really!! After all, John Denver did it in ten days. ...
Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same
Film/DVD Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, November 1976
SO THERE we were. We'd pushed through the crowds outside the Warner West End theatre. Run the gamut of flashbulbs. Said Hello to the McCartneys. ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, May 1976
AT 3PM, Alvin Lee, benevolent despot, was still asleep – he hadn't gone to bed until 9.30am – so it seemed a good excuse to ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1975
TO VISIT ALVIN LEE at home is seemingly to see a man living the perfect fantasy life – 40 room mansion, large gardens, recording studio, ...
Report by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, February 1976
KATE SIMON'S MOTHER used to warn her, "Katherine, beware of people who drink before two p.m." My mum advised me to keep that first glass ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Hammersmith Odeon, London; Apollo Theatre, Glagow
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, February 1976
IF YOU want to know just how good Skynyrd are, they're the rare band you wouldn't mind working for, just to watch the action every ...
Manhattan Transfer: Be-bopin' theTransfer Tradition
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, September 1975
Manhattan Transfer don't like being classed as a nostalgia band, they feel they're urban folk singers, singing music of the ghetto. Jonh Ingham talks to ...
Mott The Hoople: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Creem, April 1975
EVEN AS MOTT the Hoople were announcing Mick Ronson as their new guitarist at a fancy New York press conference, plans were underway for the ...
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, June 1976
Mott are shouting and the girls are pointing. That's what being on the road is all about. Mott are back and JONH INGHAM was there ...
Gram Parsons: GP (Reprise)*****
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, May 1976
IF YOU woundered why, or where, Rick Grech gets off with performing Gram Parsons type country music, it stems from co-producing this bona fide classic. ...
Comment by Jonh Ingham, mog.com, August 2007
EVERY YEAR a bunch of new noisy kids will tell you rock and roll is a young man's game. At 72 and still The King, ...
Pretty Things, The: Pretty Things: Decade Of Dues Now Pays Off
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, February 1973
THE ENGLISH BANDS that have survived since the first days of the British Invasion can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Stones, ...
Pretty Things, The: The Pretty Things: Silk Torpedo
Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, November 1974
IT GIVES you faith to know that through all the impermanency and transience of this beast we call rock, The Pretty Things soldier on. ...
Pretty Things, The: The Pretty Things: Still As Strong As Bo Diddley's Guitar Arm
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, March 1973
FEEL THE svelte red leather. Take in the expensive walnut dashboard surrounding the precision instruments; the speedo flicking between 70 and 80. Experience the full ...
Queen: A Riot At The Opera: Queen Triumphant
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, November 1975
QUEEN ARE the type of group that make a man want to abandon rock writing. They pose questions and never provide answers. They exist in ...
Queen: Mercury Rising: The Queen Interview
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, January 1976
AND SO IT CAME to pass that the Santa Claus single this Yuletide season was a spaghetti-melodrama of Love and Death, by that most British ...
Queen: Wimpy and Quips : Jonh Ingham shares an eggburger with Queen's Brian May
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, September 1975
IT WAS AN EASY DAY; I was reading my old press clippings. The phone rang. I almost didn't answer it but security can lull you. ...
Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers: The Modern Lovers
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
I'D LIKE, if I might, to commence this review by borrowing an expression from Andy Childs, he of 'Zig Zag' and 'Fat Angel' fame. Okay ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Fire and Fury in Frankfurt
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, May 1976
FORTY POUNDS for one night in a hotel. It makes you wonder. Forty Pounds would keep me and the missus for a week or more, ...
Rolling Stones, The, Keith Richards: And Sitteth At The Right Hand Of God…
Retrospective by Jonh Ingham, Rock's Backpages, December 2003
Jonh Ingham recalls a night in the presence of Keith Richards, April 1976. ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Creem, August 1975
"I should never have done solo albums, but I'm glad I did." ...
Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay: The Roxy Music Story
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1975
THE TELEPHONE'S ringing woke him. Sleepily Flame Torso surveyed the tangle of blankets which hid the form next to him. He vaguely tried to remember ...
Roxy Music at the Rainbow Theatre, London
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, September 1973
KONO IS A a Japanese journalist, top of his class. One week he's flaming around New York, the next week in London, hip to all ...
Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, April 1973
"I'D BEEN nursing the idea for Roxy since my last band," says Bryan Ferry, "since 1964-65. Obviously, when I stopped with the other band I ...
Roxy Music: Ultra Pulp Images On The Video-Cassette Of Your Mind
Profile and Interview by Jonh Ingham, NME, April 1973
THE FIRST COSMIC rock law of the seventies is this: "Everybody is a star". To which the answer is: "So what?". Roxy Music, undeniably, have ...
Runaways, The: Runaways (gasp): At Last An (groan) Objective (pant) View
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1976
The Runaways: The Roundhouse, London ...
Profile and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Hit Parader, November 1975
TWO YEARS AGO, at the time of For Your Pleasure, I attended an out of town Roxy gig. Along for the ride was Kazuhiko and ...
Sadistic Mika Band: Sadist Faction
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Let It Rock, June 1975
TWO YEARS AGO I attended an out of town Roxy gig. Along for the ride was Kazuhiko and Mika Katoh, husband and wife leaders of ...
Sex Pistols, The: Sex Pistols: This Could Be The Last Time
Report by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, January 1978
HYSTERIA! Disgust! Bemusement! Perplexity! The hip, FM radio dj still can't believe it. The Sex Pistols in San Francisco – heavee, man! Back in Hollywood, ...
Sex Pistols, The: The Sex Pistols are four months old...
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, April 1976
THE SEX PISTOLS are four months old, so tuned in to the present that it's hard to find a place to play. Yet they already ...
Sex Pistols, The, Damned, The: Citizen Punk
Retrospective by Jonh Ingham, Q, 2005
APRIL 1976 - For me it began at the El Paradise strip club, where the Sex Pistols filled a tiny room with three-chord beat and ...
Slade: Steamroller Rock Knocks 'Em Flat
Profile and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, February 1973
LONDON – Noddy gets the fans shouting, clapping, stomping, throwing their bras and knickers up on stage. Dave looks inhuman, silver from head to toe, ...
Sly & The Family Stone: Fresh (Epic)
Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, May 1973
SLY IS an interesting enigma. Top soul dj-turned-musician, he singlehandedly influenced the course of soul music with a sound that owed more to acid than ...
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, May 1976
Jonh Ingham, on the other hand, is guilty. Six days it took him to get us this piece. SIX DAYS! The Patti Smith crazy Sounds ...
Patti Smith, Stranglers, The: Patti Smith: Once Is Not Enough (ungh! choke! etc)
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1976
Patti Smith/The Stranglers: Hammersmith Odeon, London ...
Chris Spedding: Chris Spedding (Rak)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, April 1976
'AND EVERYONE goes/To see their guitar heroes' is not the kind of lyric many people would even think of, let alone commit to posterity. But ...
Chris Spedding: Speeding With Spedding
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, September 1975
DEEP IN the bowels of Television Centre, Chris Spedding whiles away the hours in a dressing room, waiting for those few minutes on TOTP when ...
Review by Jonh Ingham, Let It Rock, June 1975
WHEN I FIRST RECEIVED this album it engendered dispassionate dislike, but the more I play it the more I become merely ambivalent. Certainly there are ...
Strawbs, The: The Strawbs: From The Witchwood (A&M)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Rolling Stone, November 1971
THE STRAWBS started out as a bluegrass duo, went through incarnations with Sandy Denny in her pre-Fairport days and a cellist from Sadler's Wells Opera ...
Supremes, The: The Supremes: The Supremes (Tamla Motown) (32.16)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, August 1975
SIX PRODUCERS on one record? Is this some kind of a joke? I've heard of Rick Derringer dreaming of a different producer for each song ...
Tangerine Dream: Ricochet (Virgin) 38 min*****
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, November 1975
THE TANGS RULE. Jamie had seen it spray painted on walls all over town. In underpasses. On the back walls of railway sidings – 20 ...
Tangerine Dream: Singalongatangs
Report and Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, November 1976
YOU WANT a picture of prosperity?Take a gander over there, then. Yeah, that guy sitting on the floor at the back of the audience. That's ...
Thin Lizzy: Fat Cheque For Thin Men?
Interview by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
Lizzy hit the big time. With one eye on Wimbledon, they reveal all to JONH INGHAM... ...
Thin Lizzy: Imperial College, London
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, NME, February 1975
IT WAS WITH thunderous welcome that the dynamic Thin Lizzy returned to London last Saturday, winning many new fans and "wowing" old ones in a ...
Allen Toussaint: Southern Nights (Reprise)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, June 1975
Toussaint's Night Flight ...
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, February 1976
I MET A TRUE love at a T. Rex concert, so he has a special affection. At that time he was assaulting America, expecting everybody ...
Uriah Heep, Pretty Things, The: Uriah Heep/Pretty Things: Empire Pool, Wembley
Live Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, June 1976
THE PRETTY Things can, on occasion, succumb to being ordinary, but usually they're great. This night was no exception. Using the cavern of Wembley Empire ...
Martha Velez: Escape From Babylon (Sire)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, July 1976
IF YOU'RE of the opinion that there isn't enough Wailers music available, here's something to make your day. Apart from Ms. Velez, Lee Perry and ...
Who, The: The Who: Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy (Decca)
Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, December 1971
WELL, THEY'VE (and we all know who they are) finally gotten around to putting 'I Can't Explain', 'The Seeker', and 'Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere' onto an ...
Wings: 'She's A Good Cook, Eamon'
Report by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, October 1976
THANK YOU, AND I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO TELL ANYONE WHO HE WAS.THE LARGE, widely spaced, easy to read letters are to be the first words ...
Review by Jonh Ingham, Sounds, December 1975
EVEN IF you don't particularly care for Roy Wood (and his music seems to arouse, negatively speaking, disinterest rather than hate), you have to give ...
List of genre pieces
Review by Jonh Ingham, Phonograph Record, November 1971
SUN RECORDS and Phil Spector's Philles Records were the two most important independent record companies in the history of rock and roll. ...
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