Lynden Barber

Altered Images: Pinky Blue (Epic)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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, ...

Attila the Stockbroker: The Ultimate Hooligan

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Au Pairs: Sex Without Stress

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force: Pink Elephant, Luton

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Afrika Bambaataa: Play It Again Bam

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

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

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Cabaret Voltaire: Venue, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Carmel: Storm Before The Calm

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

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

Interview by Lynden Barber, NME, 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 ...

Clash, The: The Clash: The Brixton Academy, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Phil Collins: Facing Up To New Values

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

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

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, August 1983

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

Depeche Mode: Crushing The Wheels Of Industry

Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

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

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, March 1981

Robert Fripp lectures Lynden Barber ...

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

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Last Poets, The: The Last Poets: Young Master

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

New Asia: Ian Little: Gateway to Asia

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

New Order: Brixton Ace, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

New Order: North London Polytechnic, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

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 ...

Redskins, The: Red On Arrival: The Redskins

Report and Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Rip Rig and Panic: I Am Cold (Virgin)

Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Gil Scott-Heron: Beam Me Up (Scotty)

Interview by Lynden Barber, NME, 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 ...

Scritti Politti: The Sweetest Groove

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, May 1982

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

Soft Cell: Soft See Cell Warfare

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, January 1982

The Soft White Underbelly of Soft Cell ...

SPK: The Politics Of Junk

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, November 1984

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

Bruce Springsteen: Brighton Centre

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

This Heat: King's College, London

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, June 1982

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

Triffids, The: The Triffids: Kangaroo Courting

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...

Tom Verlaine: Slurs From The Front

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, June 1982

Tom Verlaine: The Venue, London ...

Jah Wobble: Wobbling Free

Interview by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 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 ...