Mat Snow
Editor of MOJO from 1995-1999, Snow was a regular contributor to NME in the ’80s and a feature writer for SOUNDS, Q and many other publications. Formerly editor of soccer monthly FOUR FOUR TWO, he is Editorial Consultant to ROCK’S BACKPAGES.
Mat Snow's Rock's Backpages blog
List of articles in the library by artist
23 Skidoo, Shriekback: 23 Skidoo: Urban Gamelan; Shriekback: Jam Science
Review by Mat Snow, NME, August 1984
I DON'T KNOW whether it was the film of African boys being circumcised or the self-important and gimmicky drone that accompanied it, but back in ...
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, August 1984
JUST OCCASIONALLY Robert Wyatt gets elbowed off my turntable in favour of something a little more...lycanthropic. Something to transport me away from the pristine confines ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, January 1983
King Sunny Ade and his African Beats: Lyceum, London ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, March 1992
THE RISE AND fall and rise of Aerosmith has been rock's most up-beat cautionary tale of the last few years. ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1992
If you have a moment, Tori Amos, composer, songstress and troubled soul has a few things she’d like to get off her chest. There’s her ...
Laurie Anderson: The Dominion Theatre, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, March 1983
IF YOU expected an overview of American civilization from the vantage point of a New York City loft, you would have got both more and ...
Adam & The Ants: Adam Ant: Metamorphosis of a Narc
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, July 1985
"I DON'T THINK I'm an intelligent person. But I think I have a common sense that allows me to have an instinct about what people ...
Armoury Show, The, Virginia Astley: Armoury Show/Eyeless In Gaza/Virginia Astley: The Venue, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, August 1983
RICHARD JOBSON had expected a handful to turn up tonight and thus was pleasantly surprised by a near – capacity crowd who were so indulgent, ...
B-52s, The: The B-52s: When Your World Falls Apart…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1990
Fate dealt a sobering blow to the plastic-shoed party terrorists from Athens, Georgia: their principal songwriter died when they were on the verge of worldwide ...
Bangles, The: The Bangles: Manic Impressives
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, March 1986
"VICKI ALWAYS tells me that I always used to sit in, the back of the car, a big Buick station wagon, when I was three ...
Beatles, The: Backbeat: A Bit Of Slap And A Wig
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1994
Backbeat, the much-trumpeted, unauthorised Beatles biopic with the grunge-pedigree soundtrack, est arrivé. It revolves around the tragic story of original bassist Stu Sutcliffe, who died ...
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
THERE'S A NEW story about The Beatles, and it was told by Pete Best, the drummer famous for getting sacked. ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: "We're a damn good little band"
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
On the eve of the release of Anthology 3, Paul McCartney casts his mind back to The Beatles' glorious sunset. ...
Beatles, The: The Beatles: Anthology 1
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, January 1996
ANTHOLOGY IS RIGHT. HERE IS A SEQUENCE of snap shots that just so happen to have been taken in the six years from 1958's toddling ...
Beats International: Play That Funky Music, White Boy
Report by Mat Snow, Q, November 1991
SOME POP MUSICIANS know stardom has arrived when the crowds at the in-store signing have to be kept back by a police cordon. For others, ...
Beautiful South, The: The Beautiful South: Assembly Rooms, Derby
Live Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
IN THE FINAL of the Barclays' Football League programme for the 1991-92 season, The Beautiful South have deviated from the script that identifies them as ...
Beautiful South, The: The Beautiful South: Vive La Slight Difference!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1991
AS THE Beautiful South's single ‘A Little Time’ slips down the UK charts from Number 1, in Germany it's starting to pick up sales. And ...
Birthday Party, The, Virgin Prunes, The: The Birthday Party/The Virgin Prunes: Ace Cinema, Brixton
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, December 1982
WITH CHANNEL 4's cameras peering over their shoulders, both sets of Wild Men of Pop felt a little inhibited. Mindful of television's cold, reducing stare, ...
Björk, Sugarcubes, The: The Sugarcubes: 'World Domination or Die!'
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1989
Such is the manifesto of Iceland's Sykurmolar, internationally more familiar as The Sugarcubes. And to this end they have invested funds from their rapidly increasing ...
Black Crowes, The: The Black Crowes: Guilty!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
Guilty of making music that was going out of style in 1973. Guilty of flying the tattered flag of rock'n'roll idealism. Guilty, indeed, "of never ...
Black Crowes, The, Jimmy Page: Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes: Live At The Greek (SPV)
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 2000
Recorded live in October’99, a scorching blues-rock hit-packed double album like they used to make ‘em. ...
Blood On The Saddle: Hoedown At The O.K. Corral
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, June 1986
GLENN MILLER was the first, I guess, and then there was Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Eight years later Otis Redding ...
Michael Bolton: Not Very Big In Belgium
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1991
LAST YEAR Michael Bolton was in L.A. working on his new album, the follow up to the multi-platinum Soul Provider, when he got a telephone ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
LOCATED IN one of the drearier fringes of the City of London, Strongroom Studios offers an oasis of cool, high-tech sheen. The main studio gleams ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1994
"ONE THING I'VE NOTICED driving around in this part of Switzerland is that there are no flowers. It's relentlessly green in Geneva – they must ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
BY ONE OF those neat symmetries, David Bowie introduced his prime persona at the very end of the '60s with Space Oddity, and laid it ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, November 1987
Art vs. commerce; pop and politics; materialism; the Second World War – the Bard of Barking on all of that and more.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 57mb, total interview length: 1h 02' 14" sound quality: ***
Billy Bragg: Don't Try This At Home
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1991
"WHAT DO they know of England who only England know?" enquires Billy Bragg, Bard of Barking. He is quoting, with a tiny adjustment, Rudyard Kipling, ...
Edie Brickell: "Irreplaceable": Edie Brickell & the Bohemians
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
CURRENTLY HIGHER in the US Top 10 than the latest blockbusters by Bon Jovi and U2 is the first album by a group which, until ...
Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac: Lindsey Buckingham: Your Money or Your Wife!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
It was a real-life adult farce: drinks and shrinks, drugs and deceit, marital breakdowns and "lifestyle-problems", lies and lunacy. Then Lindsey Buckingham quit Fleetwood Mac. ...
Buffalo Springfield : Expecting To Fly
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 1994
WHEN NEIL YOUNG arrived in February 1966, Los Angeles was the pop capital of America. For a city so derided, usually by its Californian rival ...
David Byrne, Talking Heads: David Byrne: A Talking Head's Guide To The Big Country
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, September 1986
COMING SOON to a cinema near you is one of this year's funniest yet most thought-provoking films. It is called True Stories, and is a ...
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, March 1984
"WHAT THE HELL else have I got but that spell?" roars John Cale onstage in a performance of ‘Leaving It Up To You’. ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
TODAY, MARIAH Carey is, at 21, the proud possessor of a debut album whose worldwide sales exceed seven million, and a pair of Grammys awarded ...
Carmel: Ronnie Scott's, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, August 1983
CARMEL IDOLISES Edith Piaf, and Serge Clerc's sleeve for 'Bad Day' depicts her as a transatlantic chanteuse crooning those midnight blue notes for Rive Gauche ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1986
The interview was meant to be about The Bad Seeds' Kicking Against The Pricks, but swiftly degenerates into an attack on music journalism in general, and interviewer Mat Snow in particular
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 41.8meg, total interview length: 45' 56" sound quality: ***
Nick Cave: From Her To Eternity (Mute)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, May 1984
NICK CAVE'S From Her To Eternity is one of the greatest rock albums ever made. Now read on... ...
Nick Cave: Prick Me Do I Not Bleed?
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, August 1986
AMONG NICK Cave's most prized possessions is a hardcover green book stuffed with press cuttings and private observations written in his painstakingly spidery hand. ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1991
TONIGHT, ON the last leg of their sold-out tour of Europe, The Charlatans play Amsterdam's modish Milkweg — the Milky Way in almost bilingual Holland ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
UNLIKE THE Sex Pistols, the other great London punk-rock group had ambitions beyond delivering the short, sharp shock to the system suggested by the sudden ...
Joe Cocker: All Together Now: Joe Cocker
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1992
After two decades blurred by addiction, tragedy and confusion, Joe Cocker is back in the saddle and preparing to mount a well-timed comeback. "I just ...
Review by Mat Snow, NME, April 1986
A PRE-RAPHAELITE beauty sweeps through trailing fronds and hothouse blooms... ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1988
Lennie talks to Mat Snow about his relationship with the press, Montreal, the idealism of '68, and the rise of the post-punk Cult of Cohen.
File format: mp3 File size: 27.3mb Interview length: 29 minutes 48 seconds Sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1988
Laughing Lennie talks to Mat Snow about songwriting, meditiation and religion, the collapse of literary culture, and the misperception of him as a Gloom Merchant.
File format: mp3 File size: 22.7mb Interview length: 24 minute 48 seconds Sound quality: ***
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1988
In this part of Mat Snow's interview, Lennie talks about music as therapy, ambiguity, songwriting and 'My Way': Sinatra vs Vicious
File format: mp3 File size: 28.1mb Interview length: 30 minutes 42 seconds Sound quality: ***
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Guardian, The, February 1988
WE LIVE IN THE days of the flood, says Leonard Cohen. "Most of my psychic landmarks have evaporated. I'm reluctant to apply the psychic realm ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, March 1990
SINCE SUCH NAMES as Simone De Beauvoir and Eve Marie Saint dropped from Lloyd Cole's lips on his debut with The Commotions, 1984's Rattlesnakes, the ...
Elvis Costello: A Man Called Uncle: Elvis Costello
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, May 1985
What is the Elvis Seal Of Approval worth? Mat Snow asks for a few words of wisdom from pop’s Uncle Brian. ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2002
Elvis Costello And The Attractions: Armed Forces; Imperial BedroomElvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose ...
Elvis Costello: Goodbye Cruel World (F-Beat)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, August 1984
"WHY MUST I be so lonely...?" ...
Elvis Costello: Mighty Like A Rose
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
RECENTLY OBSERVED sporting a trainee Father Christmas beard and chewing the fat with Jerry Garcia, Elvis Costello seemed to have completed his self-reinvention as a ...
Cramps, The: The Cramps: From Hell to Eternity
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
Ravaged, cadaverous, generally rather unsavoury, they crawled from rock 'n' roll's crypt to bring their X-rated voodoobilly music to a devoted troupe of ghoulish disciples. ...
Cramps, The: The Cramps: Pet Cemetery
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, January 1986
HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, Los Angeles, may well be the freakiest street in the Western World. ...
Crosby Stills and Nash: CSN: CSN Box-Set
Review by Mat Snow, Q, February 1992
DAVID CROSBY, STEPHEN STILLS AND Graham Nash: respectively refugees from The Byrds (fired by Roger McGuinn), Buffalo Springfield (broke up) and Manchester's very own Hollies ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
EVERY FEW YEARS AN ALBUM IS MADE IN LOS Angeles of such wistful sunniness that it sets up shop on the radio for months on ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1990
ALREADY A MINOR celebrity in the fevered confines of New Romantic London clubland, Boy George's band Culture Club secured a deal with Virgin in early ...
Culture Club: From Luxury to Heartache
Review by Mat Snow, NME, April 1986
TODAY'S SHY, retiring George is to be found downgraded to the top-left quarter of a scrupulously democratic sleeve photograph. Nobody smiles. We are no longer ...
Cure, The: The Cure: Show (Fiction)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1993
The Cure are a cult band much as Scientology is a cult religion: their adherents are legion and the degree of cultist identification is intense. ...
Cure, The: The Cure: Top Cat He's Intellectual
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, May 1984
CATERPILLAR, lovecat, fatcat, catamite, catatonia – it was a mean word-association game I played on the way to meet Robert Smith of The Cure. ...
Terence Trent D'Arby: Symphony Or Damn: The Tension Inside The Sweetness (Columbia)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, June 1993
SO MUCH for "that difficult third album". Being a precocious kind of guy, Terence Trent D'Arby cleared that hurdle one album early, 1989's Neither Fish ...
Deacon Blue: When The World Knows Your Name
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
Starry-eyed and real gone, Deacon Blue are born to run and run. ...
Deacon Blue: The Pilgrims’ Progress: Deacon Blue
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
Raised on solid moral values like hard work and the importance of belief, Ricky Ross of Deacon Blue has steered his band to the heady ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1990
Paice and Lord talk about the early days of Purple, up until the first departure of... Ian Gillan, who talks about both the first and second versions of Purple, but mostly about how much he hates Ritchie Blackmore!
Ian Paice & Jon Lord: File format: mp3; file size: 86mb, interview length: 1h 33' 54" sound quality: *** Ian Gillan: File format: mp3; file size: 64.4mb, interview length: 1h 10' 23" sound quality: * (phoner)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1990
Bassman Glover on his musical roots, and the early days; Blackmore on Ian Gillan and more...
Roger Glover: File format: mp3; file size: 75.1mb, interview length: 1h 22' 03" sound quality: ** Ritchie Blackmore: File format: mp3; file size: 69mb, interview length: 1h 15' 24" sound quality: **
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1991
Ian hated Ritchie. Ritchie hated Ian. Roger had to go, but then he came back. Jon stayed, and David joined. Then Ritchie left — and ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1988
They talk in units of a million. They plan tours like military invasions. They know the rules, Def Leppard: it takes craft, hard graft, spectacle ...
Depeche Mode: Construction Time Again (Mute)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, August 1983
"LOTS OF surprises in store/This isn’t a party/It’s a whole lot more," sings Dave Gahan in ‘More Than A Party’. It’s a song from Construction ...
Depeche Mode: The Unlikely Lads
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1989
The latest stadium-filling attraction in the States is a band that began as a cheaply equipped electronic pop act from Basildon. Today, Depeche Mode are ...
Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Summer 1988
Mark Mothersbaugh on de-evolution, DNA, and the new dystopia, plus retirement and reformation, and the desert that is Los Angeles
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 43.5mb, total interview length: 47' 30" sound quality: **
Doors, The: The Doors: Velvet Menace and Sudden Rage
Retrospective by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
Oblique visionaries, pioneering musicians, "missionaries of apocalyptic sex", The Doors cast a giant shadow forward over the new wave music and have come to symbolize ...
Duran Duran: The Amazing Lazarus Brothers
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1993
"I MASTURBATE to Duran Duran videos," announced Andy Warhol in his twilight days. Should one's speculations incline in that direction, one wonders whether the peroxide-periwigged ...
Bob Dylan: Acoustic/Good As I Been To You
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
PERHAPS AN even bigger shock than his 1965 electrification, in 1992 Dylan goes acoustic. And whereas back in '65 the spokesman for his generation was ...
Bob Dylan, Beach Boys, The, Rolling Stones, The: Rockumentaries on the Biography Channel
Film/DVD Review by Mark Pringle, Mat Snow, Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
Not long ago, any glimpse on the box of a great musician was like catching sight of the lesser spotted grebe – all the lovelier ...
Sheena Easton: Mary Poppins Meets Deep Throat?
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
IT'S A MIGHTY long way from Bellshill, Glasgow, to Beverly Hills, LA, and for Sheena Easton, the journey started even before Esther Rantzen's The Big ...
Echo & The Bunnymen: Echo and the Bunnymen: Warren Peace
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, August 1984
NOTHING IS REAL ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
"We've done our time in the backs of Transits!" ...
EMF: Naughty Neophytes of Noise
Interview by Mat Snow, Musician, August 1991
The thin line between accessibility and credibility ...
Donald Fagen: Kamakiriad (Warner Bros.)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1993
KAMAKIRIAD (Japanese for "insect" but used in this case as a futuristic steam-driven car with its own vegetable garden) tells of a journey, as much ...
Fairground Attraction, Eddi Reader: Mrs Ordinary Boring MacTartan: Eddi Reader
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1992
Unbearably arrogant, brimming with self-confidence, "in ya face" ... Eddi Reader is distinctly lacking in these most basic of frontperson qualifications. "I’m very insecure," she ...
Fairport Convention: Trebles all round!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1989
The revived Fairport Convention are celebrating their thriving cottage industry, Woodworm Records, with a 40-date tour. But it wasn’t always beer and skittles... ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Clean, sober and philosophical: Marianne, on the up with the Strange Weather album, talks about acting, poetry, the art of interpretation, and addiction and recovery.
File format: mp3; in 3 parts, total file sizes: 67.3meg, total interview length: 1h 13' 30" sound quality: ***
Marianne Faithfull: Venus & Mars
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1994
Stop sniggering at the back. Marianne Faithfull may well have bedded the world and his whippet, but that smutty old story about the cunningly concealed ...
Fall, The: Before and after the Fall
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, November 1984
"I THINK the difference is in the mechanical sounds of our time. Like the sound of the airplane in the '40s was a rmoooooaaaahhhhhhhh sound ...
Fatima Mansions: Valhalla Avenue
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
IN THEIR CHOICE of support act in the UK, no one could accuse U2 of playing safe. ...
Fine Young Cannibals: Hands On! Fine Young Cannibals
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1990
They turned down top photographers, refused advertising offers, ignored invitations from the Hollywood glitterati (bar a dinner-date with Madonna). They scrutinized every detail of their ...
Fleetwood Mac: Fleetwood mac: Greatest Hits
Review by Mat Snow, Q, January 1989
A GREATEST HITS without 'Oh Well'? 'Man Of The World'? 'The Green Manalishi'? A Fleetwood Mac Greatest Hits without, for goodness' sake, 'Albatross'?!? Apart from ...
Fleetwood Mac: Mick Fleetwood: The Ancient Tympanist…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
... and he stoppeth one of three. With a cautionary tale about a troupe of travelling musicians who, seeking their fortunes, embarked upon a journey ...
Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, April 1985
"HALLO HAHMMERSMITH...we are U2!" Holly say. Some say, ha ha, very funny; I say, many a true word spoken in jest. ...
Andy Fraser, Free: Andy Fraser: Out Of It
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1991
A rainy night in Shrewsbury was to alter the course of Andy Fraser's life. For it was there in 1970 that he first hummed the ...
AUDIO: Free's Andy Fraser (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, March 1991
The British Blues-rock bass wunderkind talks about joining John Mayall at 15, then of his years with the fabulous Free, including the writing of the iconic 'All Right Now', and Paul Kossoff's descent into drugs.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 40.7meg, total interview length: 44' 26" sound quality: ***
Robert Fripp, Toyah Wilcox: Robert Fripp and Toyah: Mr Chalk Loves Mrs Cheese
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
They seemed to belong to different worlds: the avant-garde guitar boffin and the marmalade-haired Princess of Punk. Listen awhile, as Mat Snow recounts the ...
Review by Mat Snow, NME, September 1983
THESE DAYS the barricades are thinly manned. Back in '79 Rock was Against Everything and The Gang Of 4 provided a soundtrack of surgical firepower ...
Gipsy Kings, The: Gipsy Kings: Let's Do The Shoe Right Here!
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1990
IN THE PLAIN of the Camargue, where the Rhone feeds into the Mediterranean, lies the small but distinguished town of Arles Settled by the Ancient ...
Go-Betweens, The: The Go-Betweens: Money Can't Buy You Love
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, October 1984
THERE'S NOTHING quite like a love affair to shake you out of an autopilot trance and put you back in touch with your feelings; feelings ...
Go-Betweens, The: The Go-Betweens: The Gentle Three-Headed Monster
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, August 1982
Treading carefully among the Go-Betweens – these Aussies bite! ...
Go-Betweens, The, Orange Juice: Orange Juice/The Go Betweens: Lyceum, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, April 1983
THERE COMES a time in every upwardly mobile popster's career when he/she is faced with the almost inevitable prospect of playing the Lyceum. The ...
Grant Lee Buffalo: The trio from Paranoid City
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1994
ONE GLANCE AT the music and movie tastes of acclaimed rock trio Grant Lee Buffalo would tell you that their home town is Los Angeles. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990
IT IS FOUR in the afternoon and Shaun Ryder, the allegedly handsome front man of Happy Mondays, is enjoying his breakfast. Manchester being the only ...
Obituary by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, November 2001
"Friendly. Grouchy. Kind. Grudging. Selfless. Resentful. Materialistic. Unworldy." ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2006
ON THE Friday night of September 23, 1966, former Animals bassist-turned-would-be-starmaker Chas Chandler, Animals road manager Terry McVay, and Jimmy (as he was then) Hendrix ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
THERE ARE FEW people who will deny that the first time they lowered the needle on side one, track one of album one, Are You ...
Jimi Hendrix: Bitter Experience
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
It was 20 years ago today...that Jimi Hendrix's brief but brilliant career came to an end. To mark the occasion, his former colleagues have published ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1990
YOU DO NOT listen to John Hiatt for easy-going likeability. ...
Hüsker Dü: Husker Du: Warehouse: Songs And Stories (Warner Bros)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, 1987
THERE ARE several reasons why I’d like to backtrack a decade to my teenage years, but right now I can think of none better than ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, September 1985
I WAS going to sign this piece off, "Once more Hüsker Dü prove themselves to be the most primally exciting group on the surface of ...
Hüsker Dü: Town And Country Club, Kentish Town, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, July 1987
EVER A man of the people, singer-guitarist Bob Mould was observed wandering through a jam-packed crowd, pint in hand and looking a good two stone ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1990
A press conference in which our William chats about the Oliver Stone Doors movie, breaking his leg, becoming a father and much more. Some of the questions are clipped, inaudible or missing entirely, but the answers make up for it!
File format: mp3; file size: 26.1mb; Interview length: 28' 33"; sound quality: **
Review by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
HIS STANDING AS the Greatest Living Englishman only jeopardised by that nasty prang on the old Harley, Sir William Idol has in fact reinforced his ...
Billy Idol: Whatever Happened To Bloated Rock Stars
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, August 1984
THERE WAS a time when the idea of Billy Idol one day becoming a megaplatinum punk-rock superstar would have made me choke on my nutburger. ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, January 1992
Michael Jackson: hip hop and gospel, Slash and God, sublime and ridiculous. ...
Mick Jagger: Wandering Spirit (Atlantic)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, March 1993
A GLAMOROUS grandad of 49, no one in rock'n'roll is more tightly corsetted than Mick Jagger. His iron determination to keep lean and mean, to ...
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, March 1986
"I'D LIKE TO put a disclaimer in at this point: Mat Snow is using very long word and drawing us into an academic discussion of ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1992
They used to be called Venereal and The Diseases. They owe their career to a bank manager called Roger. They've sold their souls to the ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1991
So, farewell Jane's Addiction? They were born in LA's sleaziest clubs, and hailed as this year's brightest hopes. Now their leader Perry Farrell wants the ...
Jesus & Mary Chain, The: The Jesus and Mary Chain: Paint It Black
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, July 1986
"IT IS A bit of rock'n'roll cliche. I like it, but you are open to a slagging." ...
Jethro Tull: Phew! Rocke’n’Rolle!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1988
For 20 long years Jethro Tull have peddled their hoary riffs and uniquely rustic folklore, ever clad in sturdy items from the winter wardrobe. They ...
Killing Joke: He Man and All That Jaz: Killing Joke
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, August 1983
AND JUST when you thought the laughter had died down, Killing Joke are back. 1983 sees a new LP, Fire Dances – not only their ...
Killing Joke: Fire Dances (EG)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, July 1983
AT LAST, the return of the Joke of the Wild Frontier... ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1992
Shameless image-mongers? Absolutely. Cynical marketing merchants? Good point. Purveyors of welterweight pop metal? Fair comment. But gay? "You’ll meet enough women who’ll tell you we’re ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
AS DEBUT LP titles go, Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby is a mouthful, but a memorable mouthful. ...
Lenny Kravitz: Come in, sit down, skin up…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1993
Enter, why don't you, Lenny Kravitz's psychedelically appointed freak pad, where herbular smells prevail, outdoor footwear is outlawed and co-habitees number willowy blondes and cantankerous ...
k.d. lang: k.d. Sings The Blues
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1993
She’s a genre-hopping pantheist, Lesbian, vegetarian, big-mouthed aromatherapist. In big boots. Yet despite unpromising ingredients, k.d. lang’s multi-layered cake continues to rise quite beautifully and ...
Laughing Clowns: Laughing Clowns (Red Flame)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, January 1983
"YOU SHAKE your head, you can't believe..." ...
Led Zeppelin: John Paul Jones: The Quiet One
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 2007
IN THE WORLD'S loudest group, John Paul Jones was the Quiet One. He never seemed to speak, and though he grooved, it was pressed up ...
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990
IT IS 10 YEARS since, disconsolate at the death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin ceased to be. Though there is perhaps no conscious attempt ...
Led Zeppelin: The BBC Sessions (Atlantic)
Review and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1997
Led Zeppelin's first official all-live release since 1976's The Song Remains The Same. The 2-CD set is drawn from sessions recorded for the BBC before ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1991
From his arrival in swinging London in the mid-'60s, through Hawkwind and on to Mötörhead, with asides on drug dealing (and taking), the Ladbroke Grove scene, and discussions on WW2 and tattoos!
File format: mp3; file size: 93mb, interview length: 1h 41' 32" sound quality: **
Lemmy, Motorhead: Lemmy: Just Say… Yes!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, March 1991
Lemmy did not get where he is today by shying away from all the doubtful pleasures the rock'n'roll life can offer. As the grand old ...
Lemonheads, The, Evan Dando: Evan Dando: 'I Can't Completely Let Go Of Drugs – And I Don't Want To'
Interview by Mat Snow, Guardian, The, August 2006
He was the golden boy of grunge, and then he threw it all away. Evan Dando tells Mat Snow why he wants to make a ...
Annie Lennox, Eurythmics: Annie Lennox: Hmm... What Rhymes with "Angst"?
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991
Her career has not been what she would call a bed of roses. For Annie Lennox, more like a diary of private nightmares played out ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
Ten fingers, 88 keys, 569 days – the rise and fall of Jerry Lee Lewis. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1988
The Black Rock pioneers debate race, the reclamation of rock by black musicians, and both the tensions and the possibilities contained by the cultural melting pot that is New York's Five Boroughs.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 56.5meg, total interview length: 1h 01' 39" sound quality: ***
Living Colour: Nailing Their Colours To The Mast
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, September 1988
Living Colour's world vision may be in glorious technicolour, but they're the first to admit that a black rage sweeps through their music. Mat Snow ...
Lone Justice: Maria McKee: Sweet Heart Of The Radio
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986
So, what's it to be then? Is MARIA McKEE of LONE JUSTICE last year's pretty thing or next year's Queen of the airwaves? MAT SNOW ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1994
"MINNIE MOUSE on helium," was how wags described Madonna back in the days of 'Holiday' and 'Lucky Star'. Such a girlie voice clearly betokened a ...
Madonna: Houston Astrodome, Texas
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, August 1987
So who is that girl! MAT SNOW travels to Texas and discovers a MADONNA who owes little to the soft vulnerability of Marilyn Monroe and ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1993
THE ONLY 1980s musician with a teased hairdo who was actually forgiven for it, Aimee Mann started the 1990s staring up from the dumper. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, July 2006
THERE AREN'T too many singers who've been shot, stabbed, burst their pancreas, and had their right leg amputated at the knee. Fewer still whose career ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, July 1990
British Blues legend John Mayall looks back to the start of the Blues Boom; on his guitar players Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor; revisits the Flamingo in Wardour Street; harp lessons from Sonny Boy Williamson and through to living in the USA and that house fire.
File format: mp3; in 4 parts, total file sizes: 102.2meg, total interview length: 1h 51' 38" sound quality: ***
John Mayall: This Is Where I Came In
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1990
The Flamingo in Soho, 1964: bearded disciples and pilled-up mods are packed into an airless basement. Brooms are being dusted, mojos worked, as the Hohner-huffing ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 1995
WHATEVER PAUL McCARTNEY is on in 1995, they should dump it in the water supply. Talcum-pink of complexion and trim of figure, only a curious ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1990
IN DAYS OF yore, the elders tell, the grassy slopes of Knebworth would resound to the pagan strains of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers and ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1989
Tears and consolation: the gospel according to Maria McKee. ...
Maria McKee: To The Manor Born: Maria McKee
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1989
Maria McKee has mingled with rock’s aristocracy since she was a babe-in-arms. At three she was on first-name terms with Frank Zappa, while to Arthur ...
Meat Puppets: Meat Puppets II (SST)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, May 1984
WHAT I know abot ol' time country music could be written on the back of a gnat's fart, but I ain't so pixillated (yes you ...
Members, The: The Members: Going West (Albion)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, July 1983
ONCE UPON a time I thought The Members fell between the stools of The Clash and The Boomtown Rats. Little has changed, except you ...
AUDIO: Metallica's Lars Ulrich (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Summer 1991
Mat Snow talks to Metallica's Lars Ulrich about his roots, the formation of Metallica and on through the history of the band. Massive.
File format: MP3 File size: 250.8 mb Interview length: 4h 33' 59" Sound quality: ***
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1991
They're a notch above your average cochlea-rupturing, pensioner-intimidating thrash outfit, Metallica. But their passage from fresh-faced punk-paced hopefuls to multi-platinum metal phenomenon has not been ...
Michael Jackson: Wembley Stadium, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, July 1988
A GIANT STEP FOR EVENT-KIND: Bringing his spectacular live show to the UK, MICHAEL JACKSON proves he can moonwalk and walk on water. MAT SNOW witnesses the Second Coming. ...
George Michael: Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
SOME THREE YEARS and 14 million copies later, George Michael follows up his solo debut Faith with an album that should prove to any lingering ...
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, June 1986
"ALTHOUGH I AM honest, I will deal with an interview with the confidence of GEORGE MICHAEL, POP STAR. And the way I deal with people ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1992
You're a hard-rockin' heavy metal mutha of — how shall we put it? — a certain age. A mid-life crisis looms! But if you're Gary ...
Alanis Morissette: Alanis Morrisette
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, September 1995
IF ANY SONG THIS YEAR CAN BOAST A million-dollar couplet, it is 'You Oughta Know' from the album Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. "Is ...
AUDIO: Morrissey interviewed, part 2 (1989)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1989
Revenge is his motive and shaved are his armpits.
File format: MP3 File size: 20.3mb, Interview length: 22 minutes 10 seconds, Sound quality: ***
AUDIO: Morrissey interviewed, part 3 (1989)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1989
On topicality and politics in songwriting, his depressions, and touring and audiences.
File format: MP3 File size: 32.3mb, Interview length: 35 minutes 15 seconds, Sound quality: ***
Morrissey interviewed, part 1 (1989)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1989
Part 1 of Mat Snow's monumental interview with Morrissey in 1989
File format: MP3 File size: 25.8mb<br> Interview length: 37 minute 42 seconds Sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1991
NO STRANGER TO the extravagant gesture, on the sleeve of his first all-new long-player since 1988's Viva Hate, Morrissey is pictured from below as if ...
New York Dolls: Hairspray and Hard Drugs: The New York Dolls
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1995
The Stones in drag, the proto-Sex Pistols, Aerosmith's role models, Morrissey's mad aunts. What were the legendary New York Dolls about, other than leather, leopardskin, ...
Nico/1919: Brixton Ace, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, June 1983
ALL'S BEEN quiet on the Killing Joke front for quite a while now, and it was only a matter of time before someone else got ...
Nymphs, The: The Nymphs: Here’s To… Me!
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
Self-promotion can be such a draining business: what with weeing on record company executives' desks, administering on-stage blow jobs and showing up hours late for ...
Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells II
Review by Mat Snow, Q, October 1992
IN 1973, THE 49-minute progressive-rock classic Tubular Bells not only seeded the Virgin empire by selling 16 million copies but also set a benchmark of ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, April 1983
ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES In The Dark are a triumph of packaging over content. The same principle that determines the lavishly striking sleeves by Peter Saville extends ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1988
Yoko on her musical upbringing, life during wartime, the avant garde and her involvment with John and the English music scene
File format: mp3 File size: 26.6mb Interview length: 38 minutes 44 seconds Sound quality: *
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Roy Orbson on the Travelling Wilburys, the ups-and-downs of his career, the old Sun Records gang, and a whole lot more...
File format: mp3 File sizes: 17.8 and 17.9mb Interview lengths: 31:08 and 31:26 Sound quality: ***
AUDIO: Ozzy Osbourne Speaks! Part 1 (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1991
In that inimitable Black Country accent, Ozzy talks about his background, musical roots and the birth and death of Black Sabbath. Drugs! Drink! Management Rip-Offs! It's all here.
File format: mp3 File size: 30.1mb Interview length: 43 minutes 55 seconds Sound quality: ***
AUDIO: Ozzy Osbourne Speaks! Part 2 (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1991
Sacked by Sabbath, saved by Sharon, going solo: Ozzy tells all about the ups, the downs, the addiction and alcoholism.
File format: mp3 File size: 30.7mb Interview length: 44 minutes 47 seconds Sound quality: ***
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Walking Into Clarksdale
Review and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Mat Snow, MOJO, May 1998
WHEN, IN 1994, MTV approached Robert Plant – otherwise engaged making records with unknown youngbloods, and saying rude things about Jimmy Page for working with ...
Jimmy Page/Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin: Page and Plant
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
THE DATE: Thursday, September 29,1994. THE PLACE: a table outside a café in Tottenham Street, London W1. THE CAST: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Mat Snow ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, February 1995
I HAVE A PLACE HERE IN THE Catskill mountains in New York state, about nine miles away from Woodstock. I've had it since 1988, before ...
Graham Parker: Tired and Feathered: Graham Parker - The Real Macaw
Review by Mat Snow, NME, September 1983
IT WOULD BE very tempting to take a withering look at this LP’s horribly punning title and matching sleeve, and crack an equally feeble witticism ...
Pearl Jam: 'You, My Son, Are Weird!'
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1993
They’ve a singer, Eddie Vedder, who makes Lou Reed look like a happy-go-lucky bloke; they’re vilified in the press and manically suspicious of The Biz. ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1989
Guru to innumerable pale and interesting persons, champion of all things noisesome and "challenging", fully paid-up Good Bloke... When John Peel celebrated his 50th birthday ...
Peter Gabriel: Scratch My Back
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, February 2010
FOR MOST OF US, the prospect on paper of, quote, a "song exchange concept" between Peter Gabriel and a dozen other thinking-person's art-rockers old and ...
Pet Shop Boys: Outsiderdom: The Pet Shop Boys
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, August 1988
The Pet Shop Boys have played live once, never toured and only grudgingly socialize with the pop fraternity. They've stoutly refused to take the conventional ...
Pet Shop Boys: Very (Parlophone)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1993
NEXT YEAR Neil Tennant celebrates both his 40th birthday and the tenth anniversary of the first Pet Shop Boys record, 'West End Girls'. Chances are ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Into The Great Wide Open
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
THE TITLE says it all. Space, horizon and all those rich possibilities are so central to the idea of America that it's hardly surprising they ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Traveling Wilburys: Tom Petty
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2009
This is the full, uncut version of the piece that appeared in Mojo, October 2009. ...
Pink Floyd: David Gilmour: The Rightful Heir?
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1990
Twenty-five years ago he was just the hired hand. Then he became Syd Barrett's full-time replacement. By 1985, following group leader Roger Waters' traumatic exit, ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, January 1993
IT HAD to happen. Rock's back catalogue has been repackaged so often from so many angles that sooner or later the selling point would become ...
Robert Plant: Percy Pulls It Off !
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, June 1985
Yes, the one-time wild man of rock Robert ‘Percy’ Plant in "interesting solo album" shock! And now he tells it like it is, jumps to ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, July 2002
IT'S NOT a question much asked, but what if Messrs Page and Jones had managed to secure the services of their first choice, Terry Reid, ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
ROBERT PLANT'S ALBUM Now And Zen was one of 1988's more delightful surprises: whilst quoting in jest from his own proud past in Led Zeppelin ...
Robert Plant’s Record Collection
Guide by Mat Snow, Q, May 1990
BACK IN the Spring of 1968, things aren't looking too rosy for 19-year-old singer Robert Plant. His promising group The Band Of Joy have just ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
Was goth really any more than wearing silly clothes and humming funereal dirges? ...
Pogues, The: The Pogues: The Sweet Smell Of Success
Report by Mat Snow, NME, March 1986
TODAY THE WORLD, TOMORROW THE WORLD ...
Iggy Pop: The Madcap Laughs Again
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1988
Iggy Pop "The Prophet Of Punk" — has ricocheted through some combustible times. There were fleeting stabs at bona fide rock celebrity, then prolonged bouts ...
Elvis Presley: The King Of Rock'n'Roll: The Complete '50s Masters
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1992
FROM US postage stamps to academic treatises like Greil Marcus's Dead Elvis which ponders how a rock singer ends up as apple-pie as Abe Lincoln, ...
Pretenders, The: Chrissie Hynde: We Are All Prostitutes
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986
"I CAN SIT down with someone who is shooting up heroin; I can talk to a woman who is about to have an abortion because ...
Prince: Crazy Place, Crazy Guy
Report by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
LIKE SO MUCH in life, the reality of Paisley Park proves a little different from the ad. Where is the laughing girl on the see-saw ...
Prince: Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, March 1986
GET A load of this guy. Five-foot-two in high heels, his tight black toreador pants stretch up to a fraction above his crack, hence a ...
Proclaimers, The: The Proclaimers: Eight Eyes, One Vision
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1993
The Proclaimers: Top 10 in America after four years in the wilderness. ...
Public Enemy: It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back (Def Jam) ****1/2
Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, July 1988
RICK RUBIN is white, Jewish and, on Public Enemy's second album here under scrutiny, steel-reinforces his reputation as today's greatest producer of rebel rock. ...
Public Image Ltd: PiL in Estonia, part 1 (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, August 1988
Live Aid? Bollocks! Mat Snow battles the airport tannoy to hear pearls of wisdom from John Lydon and band.
File format: MP3 File size: 16.1 mb<br> Interview length: 23 minute 47 seconds Sound quality: ***
Public Image Ltd: PiL: Holidays in Estonia
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, September 1988
"I LOVE MOANING. That's what I live for!" cackles John Lydon as he surveys a pickled herring with an even fishier eye. "I'm going to ...
Quiet Riot: Cum On Feel The Boize
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, January 1984
"CUM ON FEEL THE NOIZE!! GURLS RAAACK YOUR BOIZE!! WE'LL GET WILD WILD WILD!!!" ...
Quireboys, The: The Quireboys: Right Place, Wrong Decade
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990
"Guy?" A little voice wheedles from the small but perfectly formed Griff, lead guitarist with The Quireboys. "Have you got any of that stuff, Guy?" ...
Ramones, The: The Ramones in London, part 1 (1985)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1985
Joey and Dee Dee talk about life for da brudders is the mid-'80s, Hardcore, chart success (or not), and much more.
File format: mp3; File size: 30.6 mb Interview length: 44 minutes 36 seconds, sound quality: ***
Ramones, The: The Ramones in London, part 2 (1985)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, February 1985
Joey and Dee Dee talk about drugs, playing fast, New York City, and where they come from musically.
File format: mp3; File size: 12.5 mb Interview length: 18 minutes 16 seconds, sound quality: ***
Ramones, The: The Ramones: Too Tough To Die (Sire, import)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, November 1984
AS THE legendary Nick Kent once remarked of the Stones, The Ramones don't do, they simply are, monsieur, even if they can't get a UK ...
Ramones, The: The Ramones: Ain’t No Stoppin’ The Cretins From Boppin’!
Interview by Mat Snow, Barney Hoskyns, NME, February 1985
ONE! Joey...TWO! Dee Dee... FREE! Mat... FOUR! Barney... THE RAMONES revisited in a teenage tag-match ‘tween two of the scuzziest pairs of sneakers in the ...
Ramones, The, Flamin' Groovies, The: The Flamin' Groovies and The Ramones: London Roundhouse
Retrospective by Mat Snow, NME, 1984
AS SPRING turned into the long, hot summer of '76, the '60s in the bloated shape of the Rolling Stones self-parodied itself up its own ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, NME, 1985
AS SPRING turned into the long, hot summer of '76, the '60s in the bloated shape of The Rolling Stones self-parodied itself up its own ...
Chris Rea: The Very Best of (East West)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1994
Somewhere left of Eric Clapton and Phil Collins resides Chris Rea, a bluesman for whom the burden of life consists less of stones in his ...
Review by Mat Snow, NME, February 1984
GROWING UP in public (a further instalment). ...
R.E.M.: American Paradise Regained: R.E.M.’s Reckoning
Review by Mat Snow, NME, April 1984
WHEN I HEAR word ‘plangent’ I reach for my applause button. Which is why Reckoning and its predecessor, last year’s Murmur, confirm R.E.M. as ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1991
FOR FIVE YEARS R.E.M. steadily grew on Miles Copeland's IRS label until they took the Warner Bros shilling and were thus promoted to the big ...
R.E.M.: Lyrically Dark, Musically Oddball
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
R.E.M.'s new album, Automatic For The People, is released this month. Here, the group dissect the LP, track by track...hang on, Automatic For The People? ...
R.E.M.: Touched! Chuffed! Etc!
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1992
For R.E.M., 1991 will always be the year in which a low-key LP brought them high-profile success, the year a tiny tour won them a ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1992
THE LAST RESORT is a civilised eatery offering a wide selection of imported beers in what must surely be – after Asbury Park, New Jersey ...
Replacements, The: The Replacements/Rose Of Avalanche: Town And Country Club, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, June 1987
AS THE strains of Zep's 'Kashmir' fade into the gloom, I am confronted by an appalling sight. It is Rose Of Avalanche and, in particular, ...
Replacements, The: The Replacements: Hits From The Sticks
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, January 1986
"THEY TRY to teach you everything they think you should know and none of the things you want to know. There wasn't a class on ...
Keith Richards, Rolling Stones, The: Keith Richards
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
IN THE MIDDLE of the night, all blocks in mid-Manhattan offer a blank facade. But behind one particular stout steel door lurks a true temple ...
Keith Richards, Rolling Stones, The: Keith Richards: An English Werewolf in London
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, February 1986
WHAT BECOMES a legend most? So exactly how I'd imagined it was the scene that I wouldn't have dared make it up. Before we enter, ...
Paul Rodgers: Muddy Waters Blues (Victory)
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1993
Whoever declared that new art is created when somebody gets old art wrong may well have had blues-rock in mind. ...
Rolling Stones, The: Bill Wyman: Stone Alone
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1990
UNTIL HE WAS 26, Bill Perks was a suburban South Londoner, married with a kid and a secure job, having done his National Service rising ...
Rolling Stones, The: Keith Richards (1985)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Winter 1985
Starting with the Live Aid Dylan "fiasco", this interview moves swiftly through subjects such as guitar playing and Jeff Beck's Stones "audition", before degenerating into a row about production methods. Things get back on keel with talk of Exile and Keef's Desert Island Discs. Sound quality is, shall we say, funky.
File format: mp3; in 3 parts, total file sizes: 66mb, total interview length: 1h 12' 03" sound quality: **
Book Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1990
ONE WOULD IMAGINE that even the most loyal fan must be groaning under the weight of paper and ink dedicated of late to the venerable ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: Forty Licks
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, November 2002
HERE'S AN album with something for everyone. For Virgin/EMI it's a shot at a Beatles 1-style blockbuster to prop up sagging third-quarter figures. For newbies ...
Rolling Stones, The: The Rolling Stones: VooDoo Lounge
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 1994
CONFRONTED BY THE FIRST STUDIO ALBUM IN NEARLY FIVE years, for most Stones fans the question is not, Is it as good as Exile/Beggars/name your ...
Rolling Stones, The, Bill Wyman: Who the hell does Bill Wyman think he is?
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, January 1991
WITH SOME 15 minutes to go before the appointed end of our 60-minute afternoon session, your reporter is having a decidedly sticky moment with Bill ...
Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry: Bryan Ferry: My Indecision Is Final…
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, February 1993
Once he was the prolific matinee idol of spaceglam, the original Earl Of Suave and the king of luxuriously lined lovelessness. Now Bryan Ferry takes ...
Schoolly D: Schoolly-D: Slap Happy
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, May 1987
Reformed gangster and self-made record tycoon, SCHOOLLY-D is in town to promote his new album Saturday Night. MAT SNOW admires his jewellery ...
Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band: The Distance (Capitol)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, January 1983
THE RECENT US chart successes of Springsteen, Geils and relative newcomer John Cougar demonstrates that American worship of the great god Raaack 'n' Rawl continues ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
Bob Seger is a hard-rockin' evergreen with a scrub of grizzly beard and a laugh like one of his native Detroit gas-guzzlers starting up on ...
Sex Pistols, The: The Sex Pistols: Kiss This
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1992
NEARLY 15 YEARS after John Lydon quit the Sex Pistols, effectively ending them bar a few final pranks, his subsequent band, PiL, find themselves no ...
Ron Sexsmith: Other Songs (Interscope)
Review and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Mat Snow, MOJO, July 1997
Follow-up to 1995's self-titled debut, again produced by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake. ...
Charlie Sexton: Pictures For Pleasure
Review by Mat Snow, NME, February 1986
WHAT THE world needs now, as I'm sure you'll all agree, is a whippy 17-year-old Texan rock'n'roller with leather-sheathed buttocks waggling provocatively like two pigeon ...
Shadows, The, Hank Marvin: Hank Marvin: The King Of Twang
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1992
Raise your glasses to Hank B. Marvin: more than mere rhyming slang. ...
Shamen, The: The Shamen: Mission Control
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
The Shamen switched orbits from the doomed indie rock circuit, re-entering as dancedelic house cosmonauts with a mobile ‘interactive’ club show. Mat Snow steps cautiously ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, Fall 1991
From taking the morning train to having the look, Mat Snow probes Sheena Easton about her life in music, Esther Rantzen, Kenny Rogers, Prince and all.
File format: mp3; file size: 56.9mb, interview length: 1h 02' 09" sound quality: ***
Review by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991
MUCH HAS HAPPENED to Simple Minds since their 1989 album Street Fighting Years topped the album charts in nine countries. ...
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1989
Come to the heart of the Trossach mountains, breathe the fresh Perthshire air, and discover a troupe of weary travellers footsore from their labours upon ...
Sisters of Mercy: Sisters Under The Scales: The Reptile House EP
Review by Mat Snow, NME, July 1983
DEEP IN the woods a funeral is swinging ... ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1994
The sould legend from the Quad-cities, Tri-states area on Otis, Bobby Womack, his love of country music, and the making of the National Anthem of North-West Alabama, 'When A Man Loves A Woman'.
File format: mp3; in 3 parts, total file sizes: 74.8meg, total interview length: 1h 21' 39" sound quality: ***
Percy Sledge: A Beautiful Life
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1967, THE MACON, GEORGIA, office of Phil Walden and Associates, management and booking agents, was thronging with the most heavyweight soul ...
Patti Smith: The Patti Smith Group's Lenny Kaye on NYC punk (1986)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1986
Musician and journalist Kaye on the CBGBs scene, the differences between US and UK Punk, Patti Smith and his seminal Nuggets compilation.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 56meg, total interview length: 1h 01' 06" sound quality: ***
Patti Smith, Television: Punk in New York: Blitzkreig Bop
Retrospective and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, February 1986
"And one fine morning she turns on a New York-station / And doesn't believe what she hears at all / She started dancing to that ...
Smiths, The: The Smiths: London Palladium
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986
IN THE FOOTSTEPS of such music-hall and variety greats as Tommy Trinder, Ted Ray and Jimmy Tarbuck, tonight The Smiths tread these venerable boards to ...
Smiths, The, Morrissey: Morrissey: The Soft Touch
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
Your fans are fiercely loyal but always "with an aura of love and gentleness". You’re being sued by two former band members but accept it ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
NOW IN their 30s, this band are no longer quite so youthful as when they formed 11 years ago in New York, yet they remain ...
Spin Doctors: The Spin Doctors
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, August 1994
AT FIRST GLANCE there is little to distinguish the 150,000 revellers gathered on the opening day of the 1994 Glastonbury Festival from the millionaire rock ...
Lisa Stansfield: Northern Soul
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
WHEN THERE’S promotion to be done, it's all go chez Lisa Stansfield. At 11 in the morning, the house is full of people. BBC2's Rapido ...
Sugarcubes, The: The Sugarcubes: Ladies and Gentlemen, The Icecubes from Sugarland
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, December 1988
Paying the price of fame and fortune, The Sugarcubes have talked and I smiled themselves through a seemingly endless round of interviews and gigs. Now ...
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1992
Has Matthew Sweet quietly gone and made one of the best rock albums of the year? ...
Talking Heads, Ramones, The, Blondie: Meet The Family: Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
There's Debbie, and there's Tina and, let's see, there's little Joey, hasn't he grown? Then there's and Chris and, uh, Chris... From the shadowy ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, February 1993
MATT JOHNSON, principal boy of The The, is 31 going on 17, a perennial quester after spiritual fulfilment and soul's ease. In his last two ...
13th Floor Elevators: Easter Everywhere
Review by Mat Snow, Q, 1993
THE SECOND INSTALMENT of Decal's noble policy of reissuing all four 13th Floor Elevators albums finds the influence of San Francisco (whose Avalon Ballroom they ...
Richard Thompson, part 1 (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1988
Richard Thompson talks to Mat Snow about growing up in North London, learning guitar and forming Fairport Convention. Along the way he meets Sandy Denny and Joe Boyd...
File format: mp3 File size: 35.8mb<br>Interview length: 39 minutes 11 seconds Sound quality: ***
Richard Thompson, part 2 (1988)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, December 1988
Richard Thompson on Islam, divorce, songwriting, Fairport reunions... and his problem with The Pogues!
File format: mp3 File size: 45.8mb Interview length: 50 minutes 3 seconds Sound quality: ***
Richard Thompson: The Minstrel’s Tale
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1988
He is, by all accounts, a brilliant songwriter, a breathtaking guitarist, profoundly unphotogenic, a Moslem, an awkward old sod. Richard Thompson has spent 20 eventful ...
Throwing Muses: Grannie Takes A Trip
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986
MAT SNOW is much taken with THROWING MUSES a faith-healing four from Massachussets. ...
Transvision Vamp: The Little Magnets Versus The Bubble Of Babble
Review by Mat Snow, Q, August 1991
IT'S A FOOL who writes anyone off, but the supposedly triumphant return-to-the-fray that was the single '(I Just Wanna) B With U' barely penetrated an ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1987
The Triffids, authors of the greatest Australian country and western album, address the darker undercurrents beneath the sparkling antipodean surf. ...
Triffids, The: The Triffids: Born Sandy Devotional
Review by Mat Snow, NME, June 1986
THE MID-'80s motto is that irony has gone mainstream. Self-confidence and hope for the future have evaporated in glittering, actressy despair, to be replaced by ...
Triffids, The: The Triffids: Roses, Knives, Dead Bodies
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, January 1985
MAT SNOW hails the twisted poetry of THE TRIFFIDS while the rest of us wonder — do all the great new bands come from Australia, ...
Troggs, The: The Legendary "Troggs Tapes"
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, May 1991
Long before there was Spinal Tap, there was something else that stood for all that is inept in rock'n'roll. A fading pop group assembled in ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Drop The Bomb! The First Citizens of the Chocolate City talk about everything Go Go: the audiences, the live thing, getting energy from the people and the Washington DC scene.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 40.8mb, total interview length: 44' 24" sound quality: ***
Trouble Funk: Say What! Live In London
Review by Mat Snow, NME, November 1986
JUST THE other night I achieved a tiny slice of immortality when radio-jock Andy Kershaw played a 1960s Texan garage nugget of which he knows ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, October 2000
WITH EACH new U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
Review by Mat Snow, MOJO, March 1997
U2 have a fine sense of event and how to tweak it. Preceded by advance publicity suggesting more than enough stylistic innovation to maintain the ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, December 1991
WITH EACH NEW U2 album there has been a growing buzz of anticipation, a sense of event stoked by the way the band has stamped ...
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, September 1983
"I'D JUST love somebody to do an interview or review that had naff all to do with politics..." ...
Luther Vandross: Wembley Arena, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, July 1987
YOU CAN'T fake this kind of excitement. There can be no more exquisite thrill in live entertainment than a summery, scantily-clad soul crowd climaxing as ...
Suzanne Vega: Vaguely Seeking Suzanne
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, October 1985
I'D NEVER BEEN to a coffee-shop in New York's Greenwich Village before, but the Paradise was just as I'd imagined such a place to be ...
Velvet Underground: Party On, Dudes!
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, July 1993
The kinky boots and whips have gone; so have the "interesting" light shows and the medicinal heroin. But, yes, The Velvet Underground — the most ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground Boxed Set (Polydor)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, May 1986
WHEN POP-JOURNALISTS say "classic", we mean a record that we’ll still be playing in ten years. Marketing sharpies, however, have a far surer handle on ...
Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground: VU
Review by Mat Snow, NME, February 1985
"IF YOU PLAY the albums chronologically they cover the growth of us as people from her to there, and in there is a tale for ...
Violent Femmes: Hallowed Ground (Slash/London)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, August 1984
MILWAUKEE IS Dullsville by any other name, so little wonder that the three superbuskers who comprise The Violent Femmes munch upon the tastiest feast Americana ...
Tom Waits: Franks Wild Years (Island) *****
Review by Mat Snow, Sounds, August 1987
ONE FOR THE ROAD ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1987
Don and David talk about American culture, the Kennedy conspiracies, musical juxtapositions and growing up on Detroit rock 'n' roll.
File format: mp3; in 3 parts, total file sizes: 82.6mb, total interview length: 1h 30' 18" sound quality: ***
Was (Not Was): Brothers of Invention
Interview by Mat Snow, Sounds, July 1988
WAS (NOT WAS) still people their songs freaks, but compassion now nestles satire. MAT SNOW helps The Was Brothers find the heartbeat of their absurd ...
Wedding Present, The: The Wedding Present
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, December 1989
Chauffered car-rides on the record company’s account bear witness to The Wedding Present’s emergence out of indie-land’s "shambling" band scene. But for their singer Dave ...
Paul Weller: We All Make Mistakes
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1993
He split Britain's most loyally supported rock band to form a collective specializing in weedy white sould and ersatz jazz. He created "a Motown for ...
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, February 1986
TONIGHT WILL be one of Wet Wet Wet's last gigs before they step from cultdom's pastel spotlight into the full glare of major-league pop-stardom. Only ...
Interview by Mat Snow, MOJO, December 1994
AT A TIME WHEN X-CHROMOSOME COUNTRY has never resided further from the factory floor, honky-tonk and dreamed-of mansion on the hill, Joy Lynn White sings ...
Bobby Womack: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, 1985
HE CAME to paaaarteee, and he came to prove it all night. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages Audio, 1992
From the Birds to the Stones, via Jeff Beck and the Faces, rock'n'roll's favourite scarecrow tells the whole story...
File format: mp3 File size: 95.4mb Interview length: 1h 44' 13" Sound quality: ***
World Party: In A World Of His Own
Report and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, October 1990
Karl Wallinger’s wilderness years were ended when he formed World Party. Gone forever the endless dabblings that took him from the rock ‘n’ roll ...
Robert Wyatt: Old Rottenhat (Rough Trade)
Review by Mat Snow, NME, November 1985
CAN POLITICS and music mix? Are songs about matters commonly deemed to belong in the political sphere not really songs at all, but rather singing ...
Frank Zappa: Zap It To ‘Em, Frank!
Live Review by Mat Snow, NME, January 1983
Frank Zappa/London Symphony Orchestra: Barbican Centre, London ...
Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction: This Is The Dawning Of The Age Of Hilarious
Interview by Mat Snow, NME, July 1986
Hot rats!! Twin overhead foxtailed speed machine and paranoiac ZODIAC MINDWARP wraps his twisted thoughtgear round the silver-tongued questioning of our psychedelic snake snake MAT ...
Review and Interview by Lloyd Bradley, Mat Snow, MOJO, October 1996
JUST WHEN THE TOP WERE sounding like they'd run out of juice a mere 26 years into their career, they pull out a plum. Could ...
List of genre pieces
Overview by Mat Snow, NME, September 1986
AFTER TWO false starts due to bad weather, the wide-eyed and jittery paratroopers swallowed their third load of benzedrines in three nights and flew off ...
Guide by Mat Snow, Johnny Black, Q, November 1993
... and the law, being an all-powerful customer, usually won. Johnny Black and Mat Snow investigate the link between the crazy, hot-headed outlaws of rock ...
Jim Marshall: Right Place, Right Time
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, June 1990
Jim Marshall's taut black-and-white photographs, unobtrusively snapped in unguarded moments, are a powerfully evocative record of that first freewheeling decade before the men with the ...
One-Hit Wonders: They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!
Guide by Mat Snow, Q, March 1991
Rock ‘n’ roll, they say, is a cruel mistress. How often has pop fame proved but a tragically brief interlude between obscurity and oblivion! Well, ...
Retrospective by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, March 2001
ROUGH TRADE is 25 years old. In its early days, you wouldn’t have got odds on the firm lasting another 25 weeks. And like so ...
So, what do Q know? RBP’s 50 favourite music books
Guide by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages, February 2001
"Genius!" trumpets the cover of this month’s Q magazine: "The 50 Best Music Books Ever Written." Naturally, we wuz hooked and forked over our three ...
The Penis De Milo: Cynthia Plaster Claster
Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, September 1989
Cynthia was a normal 1960s American teenager, with an abnormal interest in rock musicians. Then, one day in art school, she was told "to make ...
Review by Mat Snow, Q, July 1992
GOTH, HAS ALWAYS BEEN more of a fashion statement than a musical phenomenon. ...
Various Artists: Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary
Review by Mat Snow, Q, November 1990
IN 1950 NEW YORKER Jac Holzman started Elektra with $600 of his bar mitzvah money, recording artists in their own homes with a tape machine ...
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