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Drake, The Weeknd: Drake/The Weeknd: Manchester Arena

Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 12 March 2014

ABEL TESFAYE, aka the Weeknd, is receiving the kind of cheers you rarely hear for what is technically a support act. The fast-rising 22-year-old Toronto ...

Iggy Azalea: One to watch: Iggy Azalea

Report and Interview by Kate Mossman, The Guardian, 24 March 2013

IGGY AZALEA has a highly developed sense of the absurd. She saw paparazzi outside her hotel this morning and felt obliged to put on dark ...

The not-so-hip J.D. Considine: A music critic who writes about music

Interview by Steven Ward, rockcritics.com, May 2000

J.D. CONSIDINE has been writing about popular music since 1977. During his more than 22-year career in rock criticism, he has polarized as many of ...

Suzanne Vega

Interview by Lucy O'Brien, The Independent, 1 February 1997

"I can't listen to Days of Open Hand without feeling like I'm getting hives. It was such a difficult album to make, I was doing ...

Randy California, Spirit: Randy California

Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, February 2004

Just turned 22, Spirit guitarist and figurehead Randy California stands on Chelsea Bridge, staring down into the grey waters of the River Thames. It's April 1973, ...

Warren Zevon: How L.A.'s 'Excitable Boy' Won the Battle with the Bottle

Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 10 April 1980

"L.A. rock's newest darling desperado, Warren Zevon, likes to start his day with a screwdriver, then clear his head with coffee and a side of ...

Pink Floyd, Rick Wright: Pink Floyd's Rick Wright (1997)

Interview by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages Audio, January 1997

The Floyd keyboard man on his solo album Broken China: writing about his wife's depression; the melancholia in his music; co-writing with lyricist Anthony Moore; Sinead O'Connor's involvement; and becoming a singer himself. He talks about what (isn't) up with Pink Floyd; his run-in with Roger Waters when recording The Wall, his dismissal from the band... and the current state of Syd Barrett.

File format: mp3; file size: 21.5mb, interview length: 22' 22" sound quality: ** (phoner)

Eagles, The: Where Eagles Dared: California's Signature Rock Band Comes to London

Report by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 29 April 2013

Messrs. Schmit, Henley, Frey and Walsh (photo: Debbie Kruger) WELCOME TO the Hotel Connaught, the plush old Mayfair institution where Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh ...

Pretenders, The, Chrissie Hynde: The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde (2010)

Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages Audio, 22 January 2010

The Pretenders frontwoman on songwriting and songs; being a band member, and an extended exposition on her vegetarianism and the brutality of the meat business.

File format: mp3; file size: 70.8mb, interview length: 1h 17' 22" sound quality: *** (phoner)

Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page: Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page (2003)

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages Audio, 17 April 2003

Jimmy Page on going through the archives to assemble the monumental Led Zeppelin DVD, and on the early days of the band, on the road and in the studio, through to Knebworth in 1979

File format: mp3; file size: 47.4meg, interview length: 49' 22", sound quality: ***

Warren Zevon (2000)

Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages Audio, May 2000

Taking tea in Soho's brand-new Sanderson Hotel, the great singer-songwriter talks about... well, almost everything: getting older; being perceived as a "dark" moralist; not being commercial; his good pal Jackson Browne; David Geffen; addiction, sobriety and therapy; his parents; plus songwriting and his diffidence in talking about it.

File format: mp3; total file size: 43.6mb, interview length: 45' 22" sound quality: ***

Bob Dylan (1991)

Interview by Paul Zollo, Rock's Backpages Audio, 4 April 1991

Bob on why he writes songs, how he writes songs, what he writes songs about, what he doesn't write songs about, the keys he writes songs in, where he likes to write songs, what songs are and aren't, and some memories of his own songs.

File format: mp3; file size: 75.5mb, interview length: 1h 22' 29" sound quality: **½

Beatles, The, Paul McCartney: Paul McCartney (2003)

Interview by Johnny Black, Rock's Backpages Audio, 14 March 2003

A long, free-flowing conversation, during which Paul talks about Phil Spector and Let It Be, on his relationship with Yoko and the "whose name first" saga, and the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, plus much more.

File format: mp3; file size: 75.8mb, total interview length: 1h 22' 44" sound quality: ****

Gun Club, The: The Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Jim Duckworth (1983)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages Audio, 18 April 1983

Jeffrey Lee Pierce talks about writing for Slash magazine; tells possible lies about his "Texas upbringing"; forming the band in Los Angeles; on people like Phast Phreddie Patterson, Alex Chilton, and the Panther Burns; running the Blondie fan club; Geoff Travis editing Duckworth off the Panther Burns album; why the band keeps changing personel; bass player Patricia Morrison, and on being produced by Chris Stein.

File format: mp3; total file size: 29.2mb, total interview length: 30' 22" sound quality: *****

Living Colour's Vernon Reid (1988)

Interview by Mark Sinker, Rock's Backpages audio, April 1988

Vernon Reid talks about Living Colour signing to Epic Records; about his other projects and producing other acts; the state of Black music in America; the life and death of disco; the importance of Prince; his early days with Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society and Defunkt; the Black Rock Coalition; negative energy, drugs and racism; and the clichéd perceptions of African-Americans.

File format: mp3; file size: 78.9mb, interview length: 1h 22' 12" sound quality: ***

Marshall Jefferson (1999)

Interview by Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 22 February 1999

The House music pioneer on the founding fathers of the music; DJs like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles; the clubs — the Music Box, the Warehouse, the Power Plant; starting making tracks; key songs like 'I've Lost Control' and 'Move Your Body'; the Trax Records rip-offs, and Marshall's own definition of House.

File format: mp3; file size: 75.2mb, interview length: 1h 22' 08" sound quality: ****

Shirley Collins (1991)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, 17 May 1991

Brit-folk doyenne Shirley Collins revisists her 1971 No Roses album track by track and discusses how the songs were chosen – and the move away from folk tradition. Collins also talks about 10,000 Maniacs' cover of 'Just as the Tide was a-Flowing'; working with Maddy Prior and Fairport Convention; the Albion Country Band... and about the state of folk today.

File format: mp3; file size: 55.1mb, interview length: 57' 22" sound quality: *****

Black Flag, Henry Rollins: Henry Rollins (1994)

Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, May 1994

Henry reflects on Kurt Cobain's recent death; Black Flag's influence on the new bands; his disapproval of slackers and his ascetic lifestyle; his disciplinarian father; violence in America; what he likes and loathes about England; his youthful fondness for Ted Nugent, and '70s hard rock in general; the difference between Black Flag and his Rollins Band; music vs. spoken word; his literary influences, including Nietzsche; his mother's record collection; being knocked out by punk rock; his gym work... and his relationship with his fans.

File format: mp3; file size: 79.5mb, interview length: 1h 22' 46" sound quality: ****

Norah Jones: Come Away With Me (EMI Capitol)

Review by Tim Clifford, Rock's Backpages, February 2002

NORAH JONES may not be up there with Wolf J Flywheel in the memorable moniker stakes, but mark it well. Produced by Arif Mardin, this ...

J. Geils Band: The Morning After (Atlantic)

Review by Nick Tosches, Phonograph Record, January 1972

GOOD HARD fast kool kat musick is the best kind. Anything without any metaphysical pretentions and with a lot of rebop raunch. ...