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Lynden Barber

Lynden Barber
Between 1980-85, Lynden Barber was happy penning reviews and features for Melody Maker until he interviewed Jah Wobble three times, realised he was repeating himself, and suddenly disappeared to the other side of the world. Just like that.

He is now a Sydney-based freelance journalist specialising in film and music; a curator for the National Film and Sound Archive website, Australian Screen; and a lecturer in screen studies at Sydney Film School. His film and music journalism sometimes appears in The Australian, while his film reviews are published regularly at the SBS network's film website and in Limelight magazine. In 2006-7 he served as Artistic Director of the Sydney Film Festival.

He blogs on music and film at Eyes Wired Open and tweets as @lyndenbarber

55 articles

List of articles in the library

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Phil Collins: Facing Up To New Values

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 7 February 1981

URPASSING even The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Crossroads in the bus-stop yapping stakes, the national adult pastime of watching Tiswas every morning of ...

Robert Fripp: Do you want me to sell you an album…or a treatise on neg-entropy?

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 21 March 1981

Robert Fripp lectures Lynden Barber ...

Bruce Springsteen: Brighton Centre

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 6 June 1981

TRYING TO WRITE about a Bruce Springsteen concert without reinforcing the man's reputation for scarcely believable stage performances is like trying to cross the Atlantic ...

Echo & the Bunnymen: Knocking on Heaven's gate

Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 20 June 1981

Lynden Barber goes Dutch on a tequila sunrise with Echo and the Bunnymen. ...

Soft Cell: Soft See Cell Warfare

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, January 1982

The Soft White Underbelly of Soft Cell ...

New Order: North London Polytechnic, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 30 January 1982

FIRST THE RESOUNDING echo of the cumbersome mythology surrounding this group, then the subsequent, inevitable dismissals and sneers. Now, perhaps for the first time, it's ...

Jah Wobble: Wobbling Free

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 3 April 1982

ON THE first bright day of '82, two tramp-like figures lounge on a bench outside the South Bank complex overlooking the Thames. The sun is ...

British Electric Foundation: Music Of Quality And Distinction Volume One (Virgin)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 10 April 1982

BRIEFCASES bulging with credentials, the boardroom men of the BEF decided last year to live up to their status as "production company" within the mighty ...

Carmel: Storm Before The Calm

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 10 April 1982

AN INTERRUPTION. You can forget your Bananajamas and their shrink-wrapped kharma, stuff your paedophiliac slobbering over little Lolita Grogan – wipe that saliva away, it's ...

Altered Images: Pinky Blue (Epic)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 8 May 1982

IF THE jolly-jolly blancmange and Jellytot frills on the cover of Happy Birthday didn't, like the kid at the party who stuffed all the eClares, ...

Scritti Politti: The Sweetest Groove

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 29 May 1982

Everything's gone GREEN, the voice of SCRITTI POLITTI tells Lynden Barber ...

The Go-Betweens, The Raincoats, The Three Courgettes: The Raincoats, Three Courgettes, The Go-Betweens: The Venue, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 5 June 1982

HAVING SUCCESSFULLY thrown off the worst aspects of their twee post-punk amateurism with the release of the refreshing Odyshape last year. The Raincoats took several steps backwards ...

Au Pairs: Sex Without Stress

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 12 June 1982

HOW COULD they have known? The caption under the BBC1 column in the Sunday Times television listings for May 30 was unmistakeable. "6.10. Sense And ...

Attila the Stockbroker: The Ultimate Hooligan

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 June 1982

STANDING against the kind of pastel sea and sky only seen in Turner paintings and south-coast resorts is a dog-eared set of leather and denim ...

Cabaret Voltaire: Venue, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 June 1982

SOME shock, this. Hatched in the dreariest industrial crucible, Cabaret Voltaire have always crawled, and snivelled down their own dubious paths, hacking away in their ...

Rip Rig and Panic: I Am Cold (Virgin)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 June 1982

THINK OF Rip Rig And Panic and think of wily freedom, wit and dazzle, a flurry of mayhem to disrupt these days of a rapidly ...

This Heat: King's College, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 June 1982

TRAGICALLY snubbed by both press and public in this country, This Heat may have played their final gig. ...

Tom Verlaine: Slurs From The Front

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 June 1982

Tom Verlaine: The Venue, London ...

New Asia: Ian Little: Gateway to Asia

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 10 July 1982

CHECK THE scarf then consider all points east. Face more than slightly swarthy, eyes coffee dark, Ian Little could easily turn out to be a ...

Pink Floyd: The Final Cut (EMI SHPF 1983)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 March 1983

JUST PICTURE IT: over on the left there's wacky old Jack-the-lad Tony Ashton bobbing and weaving away beneath his dad's mangy cloth cap like Kevin ...

New Order: Brixton Ace, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 March 1983

THE OMENS WERE poor. Judging from the new single, 'Blue Monday', you could be forgiven for supposing that New Order are simply the latest Factory ...

Comsat Angels: The Comsat Angels: Selling Sheffield By The Pound

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 20 August 1983

UNLIKE BOXING, there is no knockouts when art and commerce enter the ring, though the least we can do is award points. ...

Manu Dibango, Gasper Lawal: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 24 September 1983

READING THE music papers in mid-'76, I'd suspected that the touted wave of punk groups resembled nothing so extraordinary as a cross between zealous youth ...

The Go-Betweens: Mysteries of Exile

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 1 October 1983

The GO-BETWEENS come from Australia, but you don't need a visa to love them. Lynden Barber suggests we drop our passport control mentalities and tune ...

KC & the Sunshine Band: The Venue, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 5 November 1983

Getting on down... down ...

Sun Ra: The Joy of Life

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 November 1983

Lynden Barber hero-worships SUN RA ...

The Birthday Party, Siouxsie & The Banshees: The Birthday Party: Mutiny! (Mute 29); Siouxsie & the Banshees: Nocturne (Polydor Shah 1)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 November 1983

TO HELL AND BACK ...

Einstürzende Neubauten: North London Polytechnic

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 3 December 1983

THE MAKINGS of an iron foundry litter the stage. Austere men assume Stakhanovite postures, hammers posed momentarily before thundering metal-wards. Sparks shoots crimson from a ...

Fela Kuti: The Republic Of Kuti

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 3 December 1983

FELA KUTI gives Lynden Barber a lecture in African culture. ...

ZZ Top: Wembley Arena, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 10 December 1983

A FEW days previously BBC 2 had scored a century with their brilliantly presented tribute to the "Soundies", the juke box visual clips of the ...

Depeche Mode: Crushing The Wheels Of Industry

Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 7 January 1984

SPARKLERS. That's how German audiences display affection and appreciation. Sparklers, plus the odd lone klaxon crying out like a wolf with a peg on its ...

Bill Laswell: Baselines (Elektra Musician 60221-1 US Import)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 14 January 1984

I HAD HIGH hopes for Laswell's Baselines but large tracts turn out to be a bit of a pain, I'm afraid. ...

The Clash: The Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 17 March 1984

ONCE UPON a time when we were a little more naive than we like to admit, The Clash seemed pretty important, like they were the ...

Gil Scott-Heron: Beam Me Up (Scotty)

Interview by Lynden Barber, New Musical Express, 24 March 1984

HIS BEARD a jungle of burnt spaghetti and his clothes an apparent assortment of ill-fitting jumble bargains, Gil Scott-Heron cuts a less than (shall we ...

Grandmaster Melle Mel & the Furious Five, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five: The Venue, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 14 April 1984

THE MOST simple consideration of live performance throws up two basic types; those shows that define musical experience, are the quintessential medium for the music ...

Art of Noise: State Of The Art: The Art of Noise

Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 May 1984

Zang! Zang! Zang! go Lynden Barber's art-strings as he meets pop cryptographers ART OF NOISE.  ...

Carmel: Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 May 1984

CARMEL COLLECTED ...

New Order: Royal Festival Hall, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 26 May 1984

THICK AS THIEVES ...

Public Image Ltd: PiL: This Is What You Want, This Is What You Get (Virgin)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, July 1984

JUST when you thought you had the bugger pinned down as a spent force, a wasted opportunist and black and white photocopy of a colourful ...

James Blood Ulmer: The Venue, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 4 August 1984

IF, AS IT'S often noted, a week is a long time in pop, how long is four years in avant-jazz-funk? ...

Working Week: Shaw Theatre, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 4 August 1984

WHILE THE nadir of pop's current dalliance with jazz was reached by the terminal twit who mimed a trumpet solo through a saxophone on Ear-Say ...

Bobby Womack: Poetry in Motion

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 6 October 1984

Lynden Barber puts a face to the music of BOBBY WOMACK, a genuine soul legend who remains virtually unknown to the majority of the Great ...

Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force: Pink Elephant, Luton

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 13 October 1984

THE CABBIE, waiting in the foyer, hadn't been too impressed. Now it was different when Demis Roussos and Johnny Mathis played here. Sounded just like ...

The Last Poets: Young Master

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 13 October 1984

Kidnapped heiress Patti Hearst is said to have listened to him incessantly during her captivity and the hip-hop crowd regard him as a guru. His ...

Afrika Bambaataa: Play It Again Bam

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 20 October 1984

Leader of the Zulu Nation. Godfather of hip-hop. Overlord of funk. Black youth guru. Creator of the most influential record of the Eighties. All this ...

SPK: The Politics Of Junk

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 17 November 1984

SPK bang on pieces of metal and go spot-welding. Lynden Barber wants to know why ...

Manu Dibango: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 24 November 1984

IT TAKES TENOR TO TANGO ...

The Redskins: Red On Arrival: The Redskins

Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 8 December 1984

"TUC LEADER Norman Willis tells Arthur Scargill a few home truths," they said on Channel 4 news last night (and this is the Left Wing ...

Level 42: Pleasure Principle

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 22 December 1984

Lynden Barber accuses LEVEL 42 of showing off. Mark King stays cool. ...

Isley Jasper Isley: Ernie Isley, Chris Jasper, Marvin Isley: Broadway's Closer To Sunset Blvd. (Epic)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 12 January 1985

SNOOKER EVERY time you switch on TV, the predatory growls of British Rail staff upon being asked for assistance, the ludicrously tasteless album sleeves of ...

Mick Jagger, The Redskins: The Tube: Thank God It's Friday

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 23 February 1985

MALCOLM GERRIE is the man behind Tyne Tees' groundbreaking pop TV show The Tube. Lynden Barber went to Newcastle to investigate the programme and its ...

The Triffids: Kangaroo Courting

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 18 May 1985

LATE AFTERNOON, the wind’s beginning to whip up a little. Two Triffids sit on the balcony of an Italian cappuccino bar taking in the passing ...

The Hoodoo Gurus: Hoodoo Gurus: Coogee Bay Hotel, Sydney

Live Review by Lynden Barber, New Musical Express, 7 September 1985

GURUS MISSILES ...

Nick Cave, Screamin' Jay Hawkins: Screamin' Jay Hawkins: The Man Who Ate Nick Cave

Interview by Lynden Barber, New Musical Express, 19 July 1986

The bats screech, and inside a rockin' coffin, something stirs...up fly the nails and out pops SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS, longtime voodoo swamp beast back to ...

Simple Minds: Jim Goes To Hollywood

Interview by Lynden Barber, New Musical Express, 3 January 1987

SIMPLE MINDS, and Jim Kerr in particular, always seem to be "out" when we phone... funny, that. But LYNDEN BARBER got a good connection, from ...

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