Stephen Dalton
Stephen Dalton began his so-called career as a self-styled writer on the New Musical Express at the dawn of the 1990s. During his absurdly long tenure on the paper he survived acid house, Madchester, grunge, Britpop, electroclash, New Grave, New Rave, and at least four 1980s synth-pop revivals. Since the late 1990s he has also been a regular contributor to The Times, Uncut, Scotland on Sunday and various other publications. In 2008, he began writing about music and film for The National, a new English-language broadsheet based in Abu Dhabi. Over the years he has met some of the most charmless egomaniacs and demanding divas in the music business - most of them working in the NME editorial office. He has also interviewed countless personal heroes including David Bowie, Debbie Harry, John Peel, Mick Jagger, Chuck D, JG Ballard, Jarvis Cocker, Neil Young, Radiohead, Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk. He has never had a proper job and, frankly, it’s too late now.
List of articles in the library by artist
ABC: Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2012
MARTIN FRY clearly has a hideous self-portrait lurking in some dusty attic, because the 54-year-old appeared spookily ageless at this glitzy London show. Still as ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, November 2005
IN 2005, there are few cooler pop names to drop than a-ha. Coldplay and Travis are not just avowed fans but sometime collaborators with the ...
Damon Albarn: Dr Dee live, Manchester International Festival
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Quietus, The, July 2011
Stephen Dalton at the Manchester International Festival finds Damon "the Martin Amis of Britpop" Albarn's musical about the life of Dr John Dee to be ...
Alice In Chains: Scala, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2009
CONTEMPORARIES OF Nirvana and Pearl Jam during the Seattle grunge boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Alice In Chains returned from a long ...
Antony & the Johnsons: Antony and the Johnsons
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2008
ONSTAGE AT Harlem's fabled Apollo Theatre, Antony Hegarty cuts an imposing figure. Swept along by a 20-piece orchestra, New York City's reigning demi-monde diva sobs ...
Asian Dub Foundation: Foundation Course
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, unpublished, February 2003
JOHN PANDIT is hopping mad. We were supposed to be discussing the latest album by Pandit's multi-cultural protest-pop collective Asian Dub Foundation, but our interview ...
Babes in Toyland: Babes In Toyland: Rock And Roll Babes
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, August 1993
Deposit your 'feminist rock' preconceptions at the door, pigeonhole fans. Babes In Toyland were playing raucous licks long before the Riot Grrrls left finishing school... ...
Shirley Bassey: Cardiff International Arena
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2006
SHE MAY BE OLDER than John Prescott and camper than Liberace, but Dame Shirley Bassey's sold-out homecoming show in Cardiff on Tuesday was greeted with ...
Beastie Boys, The: Awesome Welles: The Beastie Boys' Home Movie
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2006
THE WAY Beastie Boys rapper turned movie director Adam 'MCA' Yauch tells it, the idea to film the band's sold-out homecoming gig at Madison Square ...
Beastie Boys, The: Beastie Boys: On Film
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2006
THE WAY Beastie Boys rapper turned movie director Adam 'MCA' Yauch tells it, the idea to film the band's sold-out homecoming gig at Madison Square ...
Beautiful South, The: The Beautiful South
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, March 1999
BLASTING INTO Munich airport for 24 hours on the road with the Beautiful South, the band’s publicist offers some sage advice: "Just don’t try to ...
Beautiful South, The: The Beautiful South: Sneaking Beauties
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, May 1991
PAUL HEATON GLOWERS like Mister Punch's suicidally depressed uncle with a killer migraine and inflamed piles. He is not a happy man. ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Scotland on Sunday, March 2005
ON THE SURFACE, nothing is wrong with Beck Hansen. No wires protrude from his dirty-blond moptop. No glazed expressions, no shifty answers, no sense of ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1993
With Icelandic indie stadium-fillers The Sugarcubes on seemingly permanent hold, singer Bjork Gudmundsdottir launches her solo career this month with a single, ‘Human Behaviour’. She ...
Black Grape: It's Great When You're Straight... Yeah! (Radioactive)
Review by Stephen Dalton, Vox, September 1995
YOU KNOW the story. Just over two years ago, it all went pear-shaped for Shaun Ryder. Smack addiction, bitter infighting and musical stagnation finished off ...
Blondie, Debbie Harry: Debbie Harry: Never Fade Away
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, April 2007
BEFORE Madonna, before Courtney Love and Shirley Manson, before Karen O and Beth Ditto, there was Debbie Harry. ...
Brian Eno & J. Peter Schwalm: Drawn From Life
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, 2013
Mid-life mellowness from ambient Zen master and fellow eggheads ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, May 2006
MARCH 2006, and King Monkey is swinging from the ceiling of his record label offices, grinning as he tapes over the smoke alarm for an ...
Ian Brown, Beck, Goldie, PJ Harvey, Pulp, R.E.M., Kylie Minogue: Pete Waterman: Style Counsel
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, January 1999
Last week, Pete Waterman the Brian Clough of pop, stoutly defended his new teenpop cadets Steps and his revitalised label PWL. Here Doctor Waterman offers ...
David Byrne: Colston Hall, Bristol
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, March 2009
LIKE SOME KIND OF vaguely sinister religious cult, David Byrne and his band kicked off their latest British tour dressed in pristine white from head ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2000
THE CROWD ARE ALREADY PRETTY fired up when the steamingly drunk weirdo trapped in flashing fairy lights tosses his guitar into the audience. This is ...
Carpenters, The: Karen Carpenter
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 2000
KAREN CARPENTER possesses such iconic value now — feminist totem, camp death-cult, Prozac Nation suffragette — it is increasingly difficult to assess her unique musical ...
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine: At Home With Carter
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, April 1992
Carter can't seem to stay out of the headlines – but they're valiantly resisting the pressures of fame. Stephen Dalton toured Fruitbat's new house. ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, September 1991
A Top 20 Single in Britain, feted in the USA and Japan...Suddenly Carter are hot. But it's been a long, hard haul for this duo ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, July 2006
MORE THAN THREE YEARS after his death, the Man In Black is still enjoying the kind of final-act career resurgence that artists half his age ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, January 2006
ROSANNE CASH has already been to church by the time we meet for breakfast. As dawn broke on this wintry Parisian morning, the singer-songwriter slipped ...
Nick Cave: "I Wasn't Sid Vicious": Nick Cave
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2004
FOR A HIGH-MINDED musical elder statesman like Nick Cave, cultural credibility comes in many forms. The 47-year-old Australian export has hosted London's Meltdown festival, been ...
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Hastings Pier
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, November 2004
MANY ROCK STARS would recoil at the notion of playing an end-of the-pier ballroom in a shabby South Coast retirement town, but Nick Cave appeared ...
Tony Christie: Cadogan Hall, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, November 2008
THIS HAS BEEN a vintage year for triumphant comebacks by veteran singers, from Leonard Cohen to Neil Diamond. Now Tony Christie, who turned 65 in ...
Leonard Cohen: Opera House, Manchester
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2008
MORE THAN 15 YEARS have passed since Leonard Cohen last graced a British stage, but the 73-year-old poet-turned-crooner was on suave form at the start ...
Coldcut, Fall, The: Coldcut: Ring The Noise
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, January 1990
• And they said it wouldn't last! In the pop marriage of the'80s, COLDCUT producers Jonathan Moore and Matt Black invited Mark E Smith to ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2000
IN 1999, THE former Housemartin's career went supemova, earning him millions from his FATBOY SLIM records, remixes and DJ sets. Following the death of big ...
Cornelius: Point (Matador)****
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2002
ECLECTO-POP renaissance ape goes forward to the past on second worldwide release ...
Elvis Costello & The Imposters: The Delivery Man (Mercury)***
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 2004
EMERGING FROM AN uneven middle period of marital discord, free-range experimentation and ill-advised beards, the artist formerly known as Declan MacManus appears to have upped ...
Cure, The: The Cure: Bloodflowers
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, March 2000
POSSIBLE SWANSONG from crying-on-the-inside clown prince of Stadium Goth. ...
Cure, The: The Cure: The Cure Greatest Hits (Mercury) ****
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 2001
GALORE UPDATED: more jam-smeared love muffin, vicar? ...
Darkness, The: The Darkness: SECC, Glasgow
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2004
IN POP, last year's underdog can so easily become this year's one-trick pony. The Darkness ended 2003 as the former rank outsiders who triumphed over ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, May 2001
DAVE GAHAN can't breathe. He can also hear nothing. Which is a little odd because there are 30,000 Depeche Mode fans just yards away, screaming ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, National, The, April 2009
IF THERE was a manual that rock bands could follow to guarantee long-term success, Depeche Mode would probably fail every test. During three decades together ...
Depeche Mode: Waldbühne, Berlin
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, September 2001
STILL GAHAN STRONG ...
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2010
FOUR DECADES SINCE Devo first donned their matching overalls and began their assault on the pop mainstream, America's original disco-rock Dadaists are back. ...
Neil Diamond: Hampden Park, Glasgow
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2008
AFTER A MONTH of freakishly dry weather over Scotland, the heavens opened on Thursday just in time to soak more than 30,000 fans gathered at ...
Dinosaur Jr: The Forum, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2005
IT MAY tell us something about the sorry state of contemporary rock, but at least one semi-legendary cult band from the 1980s seems to reform ...
Bob Dylan: Modern Times (Columbia) ***
Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2006
ARRIVING IN THE afterglow of Martin Scorsese's laudatory No Direction Home, Dylan's first album in five years carries the burden of great expectations. But behind ...
Bob Dylan: International Arena, Cardiff
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2006
THE CULT OF Bob Dylan stands at its highest point for decades, bolstered by the singer's highly regarded US radio show and superb memoir Chronicles. ...
Einstürzende Neubauten: Einsturzende Neubauten: The Forum, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, April 2005
WHAT HAPPENS when enfants terribles of avant-garde industrial noise grow into comfortable middle age? In the case of Einsturzende Neubauten, the former godfathers of Berlin's ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 1998
Belated, soul-stirring debut from justifiably hyped Yorkshiremen ...
Special Feature by Stephen Dalton, NME, August 2000
Y2K has been something of an annus horribilis for Eminem (discounting the ten million album sales, that is). Faced with a lawsuit from his mum, ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2000
Founding fathers of technopop come together in electro land ...
Fall, The: Mark E Smith: Not Falling, Soaring
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1991
MARK E SMITH'S REPUTATION precedes him like massed stormtroopers on the horizon. Fourteen years on, the Fall frontman still sets everyone on edge, either in ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2006
THE SUN DECK of Norman Cook's seafront Brighton home juts out over a stony stretch of supposedly private beach. But it is not that private, ...
Fatboy Slim: You've Come A Long Way, Baby (Skint)
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, October 1998
A FEW SHORT years ago, Quentin 'Norman' Cook was staring poverty, divorce and imminent nervous breakdown in the face. Despite a string of inspired chart-pop ...
Fatima Mansions: Mean Fiddler, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1990
PULPIT UP!!! ...
Bryan Ferry: Kenwood House, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, July 2004
THE ATMOSPHERE was more Glyndebourne than Glastonbury when Bryan Ferry brought his impeccably groomed lounge-soul floorshow to the leafy grounds of Kenwood House on Saturday ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2003
JUST HOURS after winning an impressive trio of MOBO awards at the Royal Albert Hall, gangsta rap superstar 50 Cent played his biggest UK show ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2010
CURRENTLY THE hottest rising star of electronic music on both sides of the Atlantic, Steven "Flying Lotus" Ellison played his biggest London show so far ...
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, National, The, October 2010
ONE OF THE MOST exciting breakthrough artists of 2010, Flying Lotus has been hailed as the Jimi Hendrix of his generation. Besides his own genre-blurring ...
Foo Fighters: Manchester City Stadium
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2008
FOURTEEN YEARS and six albums since the demise of Nirvana, Dave Grohl continues to smooth down the spiky edges of his former band's indie-metal sound. ...
Roddy Frame: Surf (Redemption)****
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, September 2002
UNPLUGGED SOLO outing from Glaswegian Peter Pan. ...
Frankmusik, Keane: Keane/Frankmusik: MEN Arena, Manchester
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, February 2009
KEANE HAVE SPENT much of their decade-long career as critical whipping boys, derided for their public school poshness and sweet, soppy, wholesome power ballads. Even ...
Serge Gainsbourg, Jane Birkin: Jane Birkin: A Legend In Her Own T'aime
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, February 2001
IN 1969, JANE BIRKIN shocked the world. Now her heavy breathing is back. ...
Goldie Lookin' Chain, Basement Jaxx: Basement Jaxx/Goldie Lookin' Chain: Bristol Canons Marsh
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2004
AFTER A SLUGGISH start, the finale of Bristol's Grolsh Summer Set shows felt like a largely triumphant affair on Wednesday. Local acts featured on the ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 2000
SLEAZY POST-party grooves from original prankster ...
Grinderman: The Forum, London ****
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2007
NICK CAVE turns 50 this year. As far back as a decade ago, he protested that rock and roll is no job for a middle-aged ...
PJ Harvey: The Dark Lady of Dorset: Polly Jean Harvey
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, 1998
WHAT FORM will Lady Darkness take today? Slogan-smeared butch bootgirl? Ditch-dwelling hobgoblin? Cauldron-stirring sorceress of seething blues alchemy? Spectrally thin bride of Frankenstein? Cock-rocking voodoo ...
Heaven 17: Penthouse and Pavement Revisited
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, November 2010
"SHEFFIELD HAS ALWAYS had a bit of a maverick attitude," says Martyn Ware of evergreen electro-pop veterans Heaven 17. "It's the natural bolshiness of the ...
House Of Love, The: The House Of Love: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, May 1992
RAFTERS GROAN as House Of Love devotees stack themselves floor to ceiling for this live Radio XFM broadcast, sucking most of London's most unlikely demographic ...
Ian Brown: Unfinished Monkey Business
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 1998
Urbane Gorilla: The Stone Rose, back from the dead ...
Ice-T, Donald D, Everlast, Spinmasters: Top Rank, Brighton
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1990
IS CHIPPING Sodbury in the house? How about Hastings? Is the Crawley posse chilling out tonight? Everybody make some goddam N-O-l-S-E... ER, please? ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, December 1991
It's taken eight years for Manchester pop princes James to become a BIG DEAL. But before the stadia of the world are rocked, there's that ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2009
IN 2001, SHAWN "Jay-Z" Carter released The Blueprint, a critical and commercial smash which set a standard the Brooklyn-born rap mogul has struggled to match ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, April 1991
NOT YOUR AVERAGE ROCK'N'ROLLER – THAT'S MIKE EDWARDS, PRIME PROPHET OF JESUS JONES, WHO SHUNS SEX'N'DRUGS AND READS MACHIAVELLI ON TOUR. STEPHEN DALTON SOAKED UP ...
Johnny Hallyday: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2012
A MERE HALF century into his career, France's biggest rock star finally made his London live debut this week. After 110 million album sales, four ...
Profile by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 2000
IAN CURTIS has amassed more disciples since his death 20 years ago than he ever attracted as singer with Manchester post-punk legends Joy Division. ...
Julian Casablancas: Ritz, Manchester
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2009
SURPRISINGLY TALL and strapping for a man who made size-zero indie-rock credible again this decade, Julian Casablancas shrugged and lolloped through an hour-long set in ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2005
FEW BANDS in pop history are quite as mysterious, elusive and maddeningly eccentric as Kraftwerk. But few remain as enduringly influential either. In 2005, even ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, March 2001
BACK TO the future with enigmatic pop androids. ...
La's, The: 20 Questions: The La’s
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, November 1990
Thought of anything nice to say about your album yet? ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, April 2000
SPRAWLED ACROSS the lunar desert floor in the sun-baked heart of Southern Calfornia, Palm Springs is the last stop before paradise for rich, wrinkled Americans. ...
Billy Mackenzie: Beyond The Sun
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, 1997
BILLY MACKENZIE was narcissism made flesh, the Devil's grin on his dimpled face and the best white pop voice of the last 20 years gushing ...
Madness: Naughty Boys In Nasty Schools
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Later, September 1999
NAUGHTY BOYS IN NASTY SCHOOLS ...
Madonna : Manchester Evening News Arena
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2004
PARTS OF MANCHESTER almost ground to a halt this weekend as the European wing of Madonna’s Reinvention Tour opened with two nights at the city’s ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, January 2002
Second decade of hits and myths from La Ciccone — but no 'American Pie' ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, April 1998
La Ciccone's latest embarks on a course of 'techno' therapy ...
Madonna: Millennium Stadium, Cardiff ***
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2008
HOURS BEFORE Madonna launched her Sticky & Sweet world tour in Cardiff on Saturday, the phenomenal pulling power of history's biggest ever female pop star ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, September 2000
THREE IS the magic number for Britrock alchemists ...
Marillion: How To Thrive On A Fish-Free Diet
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, April 2007
THERE ARE no goblins guarding the gates to Marillion's secret lair in the rolling depths of Middle England. No cackling old crones casting spells on ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Scotsman, The, February 2003
3D talks to Stephen Dalton about war, melancholia and the duo's new 100th Window. ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1992
When MASSIVE ATTACK released their debut LP last year, it was hailed as a masterful collage of rap, soul and reggae with a cinematic feel. ...
Paul McCartney: Wingspan (EMI)***
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2001
MACCA'S FIRST post-Fabs decade. ...
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, National, The, July 2008
THERE IS a certain grim irony to the news, announced last week, that Metallica’s latest album Death Magnetic will be released in September in a ...
George Michael: Earls Court, London ***
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2008
THE FIRST of George Michael's two sold-out London mega-shows on Sunday was big on bling but low on spark. ...
Kylie Minogue: Shepherds Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, July 1998
SHE MAY HAVE spent most of the Nineties pursuing different musical directions with mixed results, but Kylie Minogue can still sell out three nights at ...
Report by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, May 2005
YOU DO not need to travel too far from the Hard Rock Hotel to find the tacky glamour that earned Las Vegas its reputation as ...
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, March 1995
Intelligent Techno god or the world's next fascist dictator? Moby likes to piss people off, and he's very good at it... ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 1997
IN THE absence of any definite New Order activity for the foreseeable future, Peter Hook's latest project shamelessly recreates his pop past without even bothering ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, October 2000
BELATED SOPHOMORE opus from Wallace And Gromit of Manc disco-rock. ...
Monkees, The: The Monkees: Daydream Believer Film
Film/DVD Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, September 1998
Stephen Dalton profiles Daydream Believers, a new documentary tracing the lives of Hollywood wannabes who flunked the audition to join the most famous manufactured pop ...
Morrissey at The Lowry, Salford
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, April 2006
THE SENSE OF feverish anticipation that Morrissey still generates before each live performance, record release and even interview is a remarkable testament to the cult ...
Motorhead: Lemmy: The Oldest Rocker In Town
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2007
THE SUN hammers down on the French Riviera like a vengeful Old Testament god. With temperatures topping 90 degrees, the beach at Nice is heaving ...
Bob Mould, Sugar: Ground Sugar
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1993
After the candy-coated calm of Sugar’s Copper Blue comes the breeding, howling storm of Beaster. And the man at the helm, Bob Mould, ain’t about ...
M People: Bizarre Fruit (DeConstruction)
Review by Stephen Dalton, Vox, January 1995
Excess baggage ...
Muse: Black Holes and Revelations
Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2006
COMPARED TO the mighty cosmic thunder of Muse, the undernourished hipsters of the current Britrock scene sound like puny little insects. Matt Bellamy, Chris Wolstenholme ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2010
NEARING THE END of an epic world tour which has transformed them into Britain 's biggest band, Muse brought their sense-swamping carnival of baroque 'n ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, July 2006
IN KEEPING with his reputation as Britrock's reigning maestro of overblown melodrama, Matt Bellamy lives in a grand old villa overlooking Lake Como in northern ...
My Bloody Valentine: The Sound Of Violence
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, April 1992
My Bloody Valentine inspire purple journalistic prose and surreal interpretation. But live, they just enjoy inflicting pain. Reading covers its ears while Stephen Dalton shoegazes ...
New Order: Off the Hook – The Peter Hook Interview
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Scotland on Sunday, October 2008
Since his acrimonious split with New Order, Peter Hook has seldom been happier. Ahead of his memoir about the legendary Hacienda club, the pirate captain ...
Nine Inch Nails: An Interview with Trent Reznor
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, 1999
THE PRINCE of pain has a severe case of the sniffles. Imprisoned in a swanky London hotel, Trent Reznor has been laid low by a ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1997
• What's with America, eh? First they make Bush megastars, then they take our beloved ska, add saccharine to it and sell it back to ...
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, April 2002
LAUGH ALONG to the post-rocking German boffins. ...
Andrew Loog Oldham, Rolling Stones, The: Andrew Loog Oldham
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 2000
As manager of The Rolling Stones for most of the Sixties, ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM became almost as famous as the band themselves. Modelling himself on ...
Ol' Dirty Bastard, Wu-Tang Clan: Ol' Dirty Bastard: America's Most Wanted
Report by Stephen Dalton, NME, April 1999
Ol' Dirty Bastard's rap sheet pisses on Mark Morrison's. But are the cops really out to get him? Are gangstas gunning for him? Or is ...
Orb, The: The Orb: Orblivion (Island)
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1997
AFTER FIVE years of squandered promise, wrong turnings, bitter splits and experimental muck-spreading, how much can we honestly expect from Alex Paterson? Five years in ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, March 1992
IT'S GRIM down south. Suicidally so on the remote escarpment of lunar terrain where the Dungeness nuclear reactor hums its menacing mantra out across beaches ...
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, January 2001
They claim to be outsiders but psychedelic southern playas Big Boi and Dre are already two million LPs ahead of the rap competition. ...
Pearl Jam: Shepherds Bush Empire
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2009
ONE OF THE LAST surviving bands from the Seattle grunge goldrush that revitalised American rock two decades ago, Pearl Jam played a rare London club ...
Obituary by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 2004
LONG BEFORE we met, John Peel felt like a good friend. For those millions of us who spent our adolescence glued to his late-night radio ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2001
First six studio albums plus Tennant's extra ...
Pet Shop Boys: Very (Parlophone)
Review by Stephen Dalton, Vox, November 1993
A BANG, a crash, a highbrow cultural reference – and the best Pet Shop Boys album yet drops in for cream tea and scurrilous gossip. ...
Pet Shop Boys: The Pet Shop Boys: Pop-aganda
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2004
Potemkin and the sound of a Pet Shop Boy ...
Pizzicato Five: Caught In A Von Trapp! Pizzicato Five
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, March 1997
PIZZICATO FIVE look like the coolest band on Earth, a stylish visual remix of every trash cultural icon from the past four decades. They are ...
Robert Plant, Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara
Interview by Stephen Dalton, National, The, April 2009
A LIGHT BREEZE of mellifluous music wafts from behind the half-open door of a long, low, bunker-like building nestled deep in the English countryside. Inside ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, April 2002
YOUR NAME IS Sting. You are the planet's biggest rock star. But lately you don't like what you see in the mirror. You seem to ...
Portishead: The Curse of Portishead Lifts
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Scotland on Sunday, March 2008
IN DECEMBER last year, three black-clad ghosts from the pop past clambered onstage at an off-season holiday camp in an icy, wind-whipped corner of Somerset. ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, August 2002
SCREAM'S MULTI-WARHEAD DISCO-PUNK LOVE MISSILE OF A SEVENTH ALBUM ...
Primal Scream, Stone Roses, The: Primal Scream: An interview with Mani
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, May 2006
LEGENDARY HEDONIST and bassman Gary 'Mani' Mounfield talks about Primal Scream, Roses reunion rumours and the "Mexican stand-off" between his former bandmates... ...
Prodigy, The: Prodigy: Chat Of The Landowners
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, January 1999
In the second of this two-parter with PRODIGY'S LIAM HOWLETT, NME has a word, Hello!-stylee, about his new country home, his pal Keith and his ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 1998
The Pulp frontman takes a stairlift to heaven as he reflects on post-coital guilt and post-Britpop blues ...
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Melbourne Age (Australia), April 2004
EVERY GENERATION produces a band that fiercely divides critical and public opinion, and nobody has carried that torch higher in the 21st century than Radiohead. ...
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, 2001
THE TOWERING inferno is visible from miles away. Thom Yorke drives towards the horizon, the acrid stench of toxic smoke filling his car. He cranks ...
Radiohead: I Might Be Wrong — Live Recordings (Parlophone) ***
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 2001
JAZZWANK ROADSHOW goes nuclear. ...
Radiohead: Subterranean Homesick Aliens
Overview by Stephen Dalton, NME, August 2002
How five bookish Middle Englanders became the world's most vital band ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, February 2005
A GRAND theatrical spectacle to rival any West End show, the industrial rock carnival that is Rammstein thundered into Brixton on Thursday to kick off ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, February 2005
AS IF TAKING their cue from their friends, The Libertines, Razorlight have spent much of 2005 rocked by public tantrums and rumours of imminent disintegration. ...
R.E.M.: Michael Stipe: An Interview
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2006
THE ROOF TERRACE alone in Michael Stipe's ultra-deluxe Knightsbridge hotel suite is bigger than most luxury flats. Boasting its own sauna and dining hall, the ...
Rosanne Cash: Union Chapel, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2012
A HOST OF FACTORS, including brain surgery, have conspired to keep Rosanne Cash away from London for the last six years. Returning to a full ...
Rutles.The: The Rutles: Rock Café 2000, Stourbridge
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2005
A COMEDY sketch that grew into an cult, the Rutles may be a joke that delivered its punchline almost three decades ago, but 200 or ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, June 1991
SEAL CLUBBING seemed an attractive option to many last year after the leather-clad lothario ascended our charts atop a naggingly crap Adamski riff and steadfastly ...
Tupac Shakur: Hour Of The Gun: The Wasted Life And Brutal Death Of Tupac Shakur
Profile by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 1997
EVEN BY THE BRUTAL STANDARDS OF thug life, his was a particularly merciless encounter. It took less than two minutes for Mike Tyson to pummel ...
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, August 2000
TUPAC AMARU SHAKUR seemed to consider himself immortal, and there are certainly many who still refuse to believe the 25-year-old rapper died after a Las ...
Shamen, The: The Shamen: En-Tact (One Little Indian)
Review by Stephen Dalton, Vox, November 1990
THE PHUTURE is now. The Shamen once riffed and jangled in anoraks, got into splintered hip-hop iconoclasm for the magnificent In Gorbachev We Trust album ...
Roni Size and Reprazent: Pet Projects Win Prizes
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, October 1997
RONI SIZE and REPRAZENT's Mercury Prize-winning brand of soulful drum'n'bass has made them the most successful junglist crossover act yet... NME finds out why. Breakbeats ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Machina/The Machines Of God
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, April 2000
MONOLITHIC GOTH-metal comeback from crisis-hit Mr Happy of alternative rock. ...
Soft Cell: Cruelty Without Beauty (Cooking Vinyl) ****
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, October 2002
ORIGINAL CHEMICAL brothers make timely comeback ...
Soft Cell: Non-Stop Electronic Cabaret
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, December 2001
BEHIND THE perky peroxide quiff and gym-toned body, Marc Almond is shitting himself. Almost two decades have passed since he last performed under the Soft ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2005
BACKSTAGE AT V Festival, the queen mother of punk rock shelters from the punishing sun. With her dirty-blonde hair and boho-bag-lady chic, Kim Gordon cuts ...
Sonic Youth, Kim Gordon: Punk's Queen Mother: Kim Gordon
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2005
BACKSTAGE AT V Festival, the queen mother of punk rock shelters from the punishing sun. With her dirty-blonde hair and boho-bag-lady chic, Kim Gordon cuts ...
Spacemen 3, Spiritualized: Spaceman 3: Two Into Three Won't Go
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Vox, April 1991
...OR, WE TWO WERE THREE. THE SPACEMEN THREE, THAT IS. PETER AND JASON, TO BE PRECISE. BUT WHILE THIS PAIR OF SPACE CADETS WERE ONCE ...
Specials, The: The Specials: O2 Academy, Newcastle****
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, April 2009
THE PAST three decades seemed to fall away when the Specials began their comeback tour with this explosive and exciting performance in Newcastle upon Tyne. ...
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, September 2009
SPEECH DEBELLE’S challenge is to translate the pleasures of her terrific album into something that works on a big stage ...
Regina Spektor: Academy, Birmingham
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2009
IT APPEARS REGINA SPEKTOR has finally crossed over from word-of-mouth cult to left-field star, judging by her rapturous reception at a packed Birmingham show on ...
Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 1997
SPIRITUALIZED albums, like the Hale-Bopp comet, swoop in from the heavens at highly irregular intervals. Their opiated drones and over-reaching pretensions are usually greeted with ...
Stereolab: Dots And Loops (Duophonic)
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, September 1997
STEREOLAB ARE running dogs of bourgeois revisionism who, come the revolution, will be hunted down and shot like the lowly vermin they are. ...
Stone Roses, The: The Resurrection of the Stone Roses: Ian's Story
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 2006
MARCH 2006, and King Monkey is swinging from the ceiling of his record label offices, grinning as he tapes over the smoke alarm for an ...
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, June 2007
JOE STRUMMER was a fascinating bunch of guys. The former Clash frontman was both romantic idealist and career opportunist, anarchist rebel and proud patriot, hippie ...
Style Council, The, Paul Weller: The Style Council
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, October 2000
WELLER'S cappuccino-drinking years ...
Suede, Pet Shop Boys: Neil Tennant, Brett Anderson and Vic Reeves: Twentieth Century Blues
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, April 1997
WHAT A SIMPLY spiffing party. The glint of expensive a jewellery, the waft of exotic perfume, the tinkle of erudite conversation "More cocaine, vicar? Help ...
Tom Jones: Cardiff International Arena
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2009
AT THE START of a three-night stint in his native Wales, Tom Jones began his latest British tour in swaggeringly confident mood. ...
Tortoise, Cluster: Tortoise / Cluster: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, November 2009
CURRENT DEFINITIONS of jazz are clearly somewhat flexible, judging by the avant-rock double bill that closed this year's London Jazz Festival on Sunday night. The ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Venue (Bristol), July 2008
HOME, THE saying goes, is a place you grow up wanting to leave and grow old wanting to return to. The most restless, prolific, exotic, ...
U2 and the Making of Achtung Baby
Retrospective and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 2004
TOYKO, LATE 1993, somewhere in the fast-forward blur of the dying 20th century. As the biggest, loudest, most expensive and technically ambitious rock tour in ...
U2: City of Manchester Stadium
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, June 2005
STILL THRILLING huge audiences more than 25 years into their career, U2 become ever more impressive in their longevity, integrity, capacity for reinvention and willingness ...
Retrospective by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 1999
Twenty years ago next month, four teenagers from Dublin played their first British date in a north London pub, in front of less than a ...
Wedding Present, The: The Wedding Present: Single Sell Organism
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1992
IN THE finest novel ever written by an Englishman, Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar, our adolescent hero fantasises about leaving a thinly-disguised Leeds for London's bohemian ...
Profile by Stephen Dalton, National, The, September 2009
WHEN PRESIDENT OBAMA branded rapper Kanye West a "jackass" for his one-man stage invasion at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York last Sunday, ...
White Stripes, The: White Stripes Or Shite Hype?
Comment by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2003
NEXT WEEK the White Stripes release their latest single, a highly distinctive reading of the Burt Bacharach standard 'I Just Don't Know What To Do ...
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, August 2004
THE LAST time Jah Wobble got into a public punch-up was half a decade ago, squaring up to a street gang on his East End ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 1997
THEY LIVE in a house, a very big house, in the country. But considering that much of their energy, vision and ground-breaking ferocity derives from ...
Review by Stephen Dalton, NME, February 1999
ROBERT WYATT has been a ghostly presence in progressive British pop for the last 30 years. ...
xx, The: the xx: Civic Hall, Wolverhampton
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, December 2012
MODESTY, UNDERSTATEMENT and tasteful restraint have no place in pop music, an art form tailor-made for dysfunctional drama queens. Yet somehow the xx have backed ...
Neil Young: Deja Viewed: Neil Young on CSNY and Living with War
Interview by Stephen Dalton, unpublished, June 2008
NEIL YOUNG IS in mischievous mood this morning. Sinking into his plush hotel armchair, the veteran Canadian rocker keeps his distance behind mirror shades and ...
Neil Young: 'The Time When Music Could Change The World Has Passed'
Interview by Stephen Dalton, Scotland on Sunday, February 2008
As Neil Young prepares to open his UK tour with a rare gig in Scotland, he tells Stephen Dalton why this time war, hatred and ...
Pegi Young Follows Husband Neil Into The Spotlight
Profile and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, March 2008
ONSTAGE IN Berlin, Pegi Young makes a monumental high-tech concert hall feel like a dusty back porch in some sleepy truck-stop town. Opening for her ...
List of genre pieces
Cameron Crowe: Bringing It All Back Home
Profile by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, February 2001
"If people have a problem with Almost Famous, what they're saying is they have a problem with my life." ...
Factory Records and 24 Hour Party People
Report and Interview by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, April 2002
THEY SAID IT could never happen again. But here we are, trapped in a recurring dream. A chilly Friday night in a cavernous warehouse in ...
Glam Rock: Scary Monsters, Super Freaks #1
Special Feature by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, November 1998
THE FREAKS ARE OUT IN FORCE TONIGHT. Squeezed into lurid outfits, hair dyed every artificial hue imaginable, braying and squealing and jostling for position. ...
Pete Waterman: The Puppetmasterplan
Interview by Stephen Dalton, NME, January 1999
Pete Waterman: scourge of the majors, champion of the people and the most wonderful man in Britain? Or just the tosser who brought us Jason ...
Essay by Stephen Dalton, Vox, June 1993
Ever since Woody Guthrie scratched 'This Guitar Kills Fascists' on his six-string, musicians have exploited rock's confrontational possibilities, from anti-racism to sexual revolution, in a ...
Overview by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2010
THE FIRST THING that hits you, quite literally, is the sledgehammer bass sound. Walk into any dubstep club and these gnarly, spine-twisting shudders almost knock ...
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