John McCready
John McCready began writing as a news journalist in Liverpool. One reluctantly allowed him a music column. With ambitions to write for NME, he bombarded then Live Reviews editor, Danny Kelly with an uncommissioned series of pieces. Danny called him to ask what the fuck he thought he was doing. John was given the NME news editor's job for a couple of months. He gave in on discovering the previous editor, having been sacked, had destroyed the filing system.
John freelanced for NME from 1986 and avoided the indie vs soul wars until the early '90s — being the first to write nationally about the La's, Half Man Half Biscuit and the Detroit Techno scene. He's proud to have barged Cilla Black onto the NME cover and to have also interviewed a puzzled Kenneth Williams: "I mean why? One thing I am not is a musician". He also wrote extensively for The Face and was hauled into Nick Logan's office one day for contributing a piece to it in which he communicated to its readers that most of the people who worked for it looked like "binmen". There were significant associations with ID, Radio Times, Mojo and Word.
John has compiled and written sleeve notes for releases by New Order and Stone Roses. He had a one-job-only career as Press Officer for Network Records in Birmingham — the pioneering dance independent which brought the world Detroit Techno. Select magazine once designed and delivered an award certificate for services to "Untruth and Dishonesty" following oblique press campaigns for the eternally entertaining Altern 8.
He has written and presented stories for Radio 4's Front Row and worked as a producer and music consultant in TV — overseeing an entire evening of anniversary programmes on John Lennon for Channel 4 — together with documentaries for BBC and ITV on the Beach Boys, Abba and the Carpenters.
A move to Manchester in 1990 saw John become a resident Hacienda DJ and a New Order tour DJ. He released records on the great Rob Gretton's label. He continues to DJ. A collection of wildly eclectic and disco centric Hacienda inspired mixes can be found at: https://soundcloud.com/gay-traitor
Currently teaching and lecturing on music journalism, John has created and taught courses at Leeds College of Music, Huddersfield University, Edge Hill University and for training specialists, News Associates in Manchester and London. He is a lecturer at Manchester School of Sound Recording.
76 articles
List of articles in the library
The Nightingales, The Riotous Hues: System, Liverpool
Live Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 3 August 1985
GALE WARNING ...
Primal Scream, The Tractors: Mardis Gras, Liverpool
Live Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 7 September 1985
THE TRACTORS apologise. Too much to drink. Something about an unprofessional performance. No need! Ooop in St Helens, agricultural machinery is apparently fuelled by lager. ...
Half Man Half Biscuit: Tough Cookies
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 14 December 1985
"Next week will solve all your problems/But now, fish fingers all in a line/The Milk bottles stand empty/Stay glued to your TV Set." (Ex-Lion ...
Half Man Half Biscuit: System Club, Liverpool
Live Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 29 March 1986
WARNING: PACEMAKERS TO BE SHOWN ...
It's Immaterial: Driving Force
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 26 April 1986
In the past IT'S IMMATERIAL have lived up to their name only too well. Now, as their new single hits the charts, they reveal to ...
The Ramones: Ramones: Animal Boy
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 24 May 1986
THERE ARE but two reactions to a Ramones record. When it mumbles something like 'I Need Psychiatric Treatment', as they do here, you will either ...
Sigue Sigue Sputnik: Flaunt It
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 2 August 1986
AS STUPID as they are, the British public can take a joke if you give them a punchline to go with it. They bought Malcolm ...
The Human League: Flesh And Blood
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 20 September 1986
Born to make mistakes? THE HUMAN LEAGUE, CLASS of '81 veterans, saved Phil Oakey from a life on the bins. Jon McCready talks to the ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 11 October 1986
WISE UP! ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 25 October 1986
PRETENDERS LPs were always crap. Get Close is no exception. Having said that, though I have quite a bit of time for Chrissie Hynde, her ...
Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Mad Bastards
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 8 November 1986
WITH A LITTLE help from his friends, Frankie went to Number One. He found that Number One was more exciting than Hollywood ever could be. ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 22 November 1986
IT WAS Mark Smith of top pop group The Fall who, in a typical broadcast of dedicated anti-trendiness, announced that vegetarianism helped one leave the ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 29 November 1986
IT WAS almost as if they were trying too hard to convince themselves. With all the zip his curiously glum voice could muster, Suggs sings, ...
Madonna: The Crucifixion Of A Junkyard Angel
Comment by Lucy O'Brien, John McCready, New Musical Express, 13 December 1986
Madonna: The Crucifixion Of A Junkyard Angel, part 1Lucy O'Brien ...
Van Morrison: Live At Liverpool Empire.
Live Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 1987
"Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder.Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision brightDidn’t I come to bring you a sense ...
A Certain Ratio: Ten Years on the Factory Floor
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 10 January 1987
Can you feel the 'force'? A CERTAIN RATIO's decade of inconsistent, meandering flight between trash and flashes of brilliance may well have come to an ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 14 March 1987
OUT OF LITTLE ACORNS... ...
Sly & Robbie: Rhythm Killers (Island)
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 2 May 1987
BONDED BRILLIANCE ...
The Railway Children: Wigan's Chosen Few
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 2 May 1987
As their LP chugs into the charts, THE RAILWAY CHILDREN appear to be on the fast-track for pop stardom. JOHN "Beeching" McCREADY however, reckons it's ...
Schoolly D: Saturday Night Jive
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 16 May 1987
Yo! and pass the fun-size Mars Bars! Eating lemon sherbets instead of lead death, JOHN McCREADY asks cutting edge B-boy SCHOOLLY D how he got ...
Trouble Funk: Trouble With Your Dancing Feet?
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 27 June 1987
TROUBLE FUNK are going where no go-go has gone before, to radio-land. JOHN McCREADY supports this funky plan. ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 11 July 1987
IN NEW YORK, there's a war going on. Television ignores it, the papers don't speak of it. It's a war where most of the bloodshed ...
Profile by John McCready, Radio Times, August 1987
IT'S LIKE saying Miles Davis can play the trumpet, or Mike Tyson can knock most heavyweights into the middle of next week, but Luther Vandross ...
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 12 September 1987
Michael Jackson doesn't live in the real world. I read my Sun and Star every day. I know that the boy from Gary, Indiana is ...
Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 24 October 1987
"WE CAN'T really play but were having ago. And we love music, thats why were having a go... our songs are just dead catchy tunes ...
Pepsi & Shirlie: All Right Now (Polydor)
Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 31 October 1987
PEPSI AND SHIRLIE would like to be taken seriously, but their past is working against them — the fact that they once danced behind The ...
Report and Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 7 November 1987
After ten years in the shadow of New York Flash and Cool, Philadelphia is fast becoming the City of Brotherly Rap. A new generation of ...
The Beastie Boys: The Beastie Bit
Report by John McCready, New Musical Express, 21 November 1987
JOHN McCREADY on the Beastie Boys court case... ...
Smith & Mighty: Smith And Mighty: Bristol Rising
Profile and Interview by John McCready, The Face, 1988
Coming from the same sound system roots as Soul II Soul, dance producers Smith And Mighty are at the centre of a thriving West Country ...
The Farm: The Dark Side Of The Mersey: Retro-Rock Scallies
Report and Interview by John McCready, The Face, 1988
A HIPPIE IS chased down a darkened street by a group of 16 year-old Casuals. In most parts of Britain, what follows is likely to ...
Jamie Principle: Acid House: New Acid Daze
Report and Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 6 February 1988
As our charts bulge with British House, so its big American brother trips off in a new direction. Spacier and racier, mesmeric and dis(c)oncerting – ...
Report by John McCready, New Musical Express, 6 February 1988
As our charts bulge with British House, so its big American brother trips off in a new direction. Spacier and racier, mesmeric and dis(c)oncerting ...
Report and Interview by Paolo Hewitt, John McCready, New Musical Express, 12 March 1988
Cold Chillin' Records was started in 1986 by Tyrone Williams. As manager of Marley Marl — a 23 year old producer, writer, arranger, and renowned New ...
Profile and Interview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 2 April 1988
Rap moves fast. Blink and you'll miss a ship-full of 12-inch singles each one pointing in a dozen new directions. With almost ten years or ...
Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson: Techno: Don't Fear the Robot
Overview by John McCready, New Musical Express, 16 July 1988
TECHNO – a new Detroit sound vibration – is rocking the House of the future. John McCready checks out the credentials of the Third Wave ...
Report by John McCready, The Face, October 1988
Scorned by the purists and ignored elsewhere, British soul has finally decided to go it alone. From bedrooms in Hackney and basements in Bristol a ...
Interview by John McCready, The Face, 1989
"ASK ME what you want, John. I can take it. I mean, what are you going to do — spank me?" ...
Depeche Mode: Modus Operandum: Depeche Mode in Detroit
Interview by John McCready, The Face, 1989
IT'S JUST after one at the best club on the planet. This is Detroits Music Institute, an all-night and most-of-the-next-day juice bar with a sound ...
Guide by John McCready, The Face, 1989
TECHNO HAS turned ordinary record buyers into badly-informed technology obsessives. ...
Interview by John McCready, The Face, 1989
INSPIRED BY a single, There She Goes, and an assortment of odd, beautiful and tangential B-sides built from nothing but raw creativity, I feel like ...
Frankie Knuckles: The Godfather
Report and Interview by John McCready, The Face, May 1989
AS YOU'RE assaulted by yet another PWL production — the legacy of House lives on in 'I'd Rather Jack' — this question may or may ...
Jane's Addiction: Jane’s Addiction: Guns ’N Poses
Interview by John McCready, The Face, 1990
Some people think Janes Addiction are the new Guns N Roses, even the new Rolling Stones. Others think that singer Perry Farrell will save rock ...
Depeche Mode, Erasure, Inspiral Carpets: Staying Mute
Profile and Interview by John McCready, The Face, August 1990
ELECTRONIC. TEUTONIC. Independent. European. Regardless of the reality of its catalogue, Mute Records has a certain image. Like any record label with a desire to ...
The KLF: KLF: Tales From The White Room
Interview by John McCready, The Face, September 1990
SINISTER. That's the word. The KLF are sinister. With their pervy mail-order black-hooded packamacks, their propaganda and their perfect assimilation of rave culture they are ...
Janet Jackson: Into Control, Out Of Tunes
Interview by John McCready, The Face, October 1990
JANET JACKSON'S last single, 'Black Cat', was truly mind boggling in its awfulness. Its politely heavy metal styling was really just an excuse for Janet ...
Charlatans, The (UK): The Charlatans: Sexier Than Shaky?
Interview by John McCready, The Face, October 1990
After one chart hit, The Charlatans are poised on the fringe of either stardom or obscurity. They may be better mannered than Happy Mondays and cuter than the Stone Roses, but will ...
Beats International, Fatboy Slim: Beats International are a Pop Group of Their Time
Report and Interview by John McCready, The Face, November 1990
...an indie star turned dance guru, a soap star turned singer, and a motley crew of British rappers, singers, musicians, graffiti artists and dancers passing ...
Massive Attack: The Bristol Bunch
Interview by John McCready, The Face, January 1991
MASSIVE ATTACK were part of Bristol's Wild Bunch crew, a posse who pioneered UK hip hop. In 1986 they helped put together ‘The Look Of ...
Review by John McCready, Select, June 1991
BAABA MAAL is best known in Africa as an exponent of Senegalese folk music, which he plays on guitar, fora and riti. Something of a ...
Interview by John McCready, Mixmag, July 1991
The look, the voice, the haircut is back. However it seems the lady who was born plain Pat Daniels is is revealing a more sensitive ...
Electronic: Getting Away With It
Interview by John McCready, Spin, July 1991
John McCready probes the northern soul of Electronic, the first English supergroup of the '90s ...
Larry Levan: The Great Phoney Garage Revival
Comment by John McCready, Mixmag, November 1991
John McCready gets shirty about all this Garage hype. ...
Miami Bass: How Low Can You Go?
Report by John McCready, The Face, 1994
In Florida, a pair of 15-inch speakers carry more B-boy cred than a pair of fat-laced sneakers, and your car is judged not by speed ...
Amon Düül, Faust, Neu!: Welcome To The Machine: Kraut Rock
Overview by John McCready, The Face, November 1996
Julian Cope has championed it, new Nineties bands are ransacking it and the ageing German hippies that first created it are now packing in techno ...
Retrospective by John McCready, The Face, 1997
TEN YEARS IS A LONG TIME. Three score short of a lifetime, I know, but long enough to establish your own space programme and see ...
Guide by John McCready, MOJO, 1997
UNLIKE THE Hoover, a similarly undisputed brand leader which describes any vacuum cleaner as all vacuum cleaners do the same thing, all synthesizers are, over ...
Manic Street Preachers: NYNEX, Manchester
Live Review by John McCready, MOJO, May 1997
FOR A group who have long flirted with the traditional tricks of "rawk", this is really a hell of a risk. The potential for misunderstanding ...
808 State, Happy Mondays, New Order: The Haçienda: Working on a Building of Love
Retrospective by John McCready, The Face, May 1997
It gives us such great joy to sayThat fifteen years ago todayA club was born — the HaçiendaA venue for the maddest bendersSo as you ...
Profile by John McCready, The Independent, 23 May 1997
IT IS inevitable and happens to everyone. James Brown's new bag is now full of holes. David Bowie, a former ideas factory, is reduced to ...
Paul Oakenfold: House Music: Promised Land
Overview by John McCready, The Face, August 1997
What have we got to celebrate after ten years of non-stop ecstatic dancing? Loads, says John McCready ...
Todd Terry: Ready For A New Day (Manifesto)
Review by John McCready, MOJO, September 1997
Disco legends guest on album that's mostly club deity and his drum machine. ...
Review by John McCready, MOJO, October 1997
I CAN'T HAVE BEEN ALONE in not being convinced. Yet there were people from day one and the debut LP A Storm In Heaven making ...
Roni Size and Reprazent: Roni Size & Reprazent: Academy, Manchester
Live Review by John McCready, MOJO, December 1997
I'D STOOD in the same spot a month or so ago watching David Bowie — an old man using drum'n'bass as a kind of fashionable ...
Working on a Building of Love: The Great Days of the Haçienda
Retrospective by John McCready, The Face, Spring 1997
With Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People opening in the UK this weekend, we reprint Face writer John McCready's wonderful account of the club's rise, ...
Yes: Live At Manchester Apollo
Live Review by John McCready, The Independent, February 1998
LIKE ALICE Cooper, who I saw late last year playing the same game, it's interesting to note that former forces of the 1970s are bowing ...
King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, Lee "Scratch" Perry: A Bluffer's Guide To Dub
Guide by John McCready, Jockey Slut, 2000
Note: This piece originally featured in Jockey Slut magazine and was written to serve as an introduction to those who had heard the word Dub ...
Sleeve notes by John McCready, Counterpoint Records, 2000
THOUGH MANY have tried, it’s hard to free disco of the negative associations that have shadowed it. "Disco Sucks", they still say. Boney M and ...
Joe Meek: Hearing A New World: The Joe Meek Story
Retrospective by John McCready, MOJO, May 2001
NOTE: This piece originally featured in Mojo magazine in a truncated 8,000 word edit. this is the full near-12,000 word original piece. This is such ...
Retrospective and Interview by John McCready, MOJO, May 2002
ON FRIDAY, JULY 10, 1987, the greatest rock'n'roll band of the decade are playing to no more than 30 people at Planet X, a dark ...
Joy Division: Adventures in Hi-Fi: Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures
Retrospective by John McCready, MOJO, June 2003
ALREADY MAKING the transition from off-the-peg punk to something harder and darker, Joy Division were on the verge of great things in 1979. ...
Hot Chip: Super Fry Guys: Hot Chip's Made In The Dark (EMI)
Review by John McCready, The Word, February 2008
Hot Chip: Brains from Thunderbirds and his science-block mates create wonderful dance music — that you don't have to dance to. ...
Goldfrapp: Seventh Tree (Mute)
Review by John McCready, The Word, March 2008
Country Casuals: Farewell to Equus Goes Rollerdisco and "Hello trees, Hello flowers" as Goldfrapp undertake their own bucolic Relocation, Relocation ...
Review by John McCready, The Word, April 2008
Imagined in London, bankrolled by pop hits and prog rock — the disco-dub collision at Compass Point Studios created shockwaves. ...
Half Man Half Biscuit: CSI: Ambleside
Review by John McCready, The Word, June 2008
Forget the TV-obsessed japery of their John Peel years. Half Man Half Biscuit are now the most perceptive satirists in British music. ...
Propaganda: A Secret Wish (ZTT/Salvo)
Review by John McCready, The Word, September 2010
Fizzing with conflicting creative energies, Propaganda could have been a disaster. Instead they constructed a masterpiece. ...
Blancmange, The Human League: The Human League: Credo/Blancmange: Blanc Burn
Review by John McCready, The Word, April 2011
Shiny new albums by Blancmange and the Human League show they'll stop at nothing in the service of "electronic ideals". ...
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