Chris Bohn
Chris Bohn wrote for Melody Maker and NME in the late '70s and '80s. For the past 20 years he has written under the name 'Biba Kopf', and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of The Wire.
78 articles
List of articles in the library
Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 1978
PATTI SMITH'S first album, Horses, was a bolt out of the blue, a lightning stab at the very top of the tree, one of the ...
The Clash: Electric Ballroom/Lyceum London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 1979
CLASH GIGS these days aren't the backs–against–the wall experience they used to be. The political tensions and confrontations they once represented are now just so ...
Grateful Dead: The Grateful Dead: Live at The Rainbow, London
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 1979
SO LET'S suspend time and disbelief for a moment and stare through the haze at the West Coast's longest running institution called The Grateful Dead. ...
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 26 May 1979
FOUR DIVERSE samples of current Mancunian Factory products: dopey comedian John Dowie; a cute pop duo called Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark; A Certain Ratio ...
Iggy Pop, UK Subs: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 June 1979
GIVE IGGY Pop a sense of occasion and he'll rise to it — magnificently. The difference between Friday's concert and the first London appearance of ...
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Rico Rodriguez: Marquee, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 June 1979
EVERY REFERENCE to cops getting hurt elicited cheers of approval from a largely white audience on Sunday. Is that the kind of solidarity that back-and-proud ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 June 1979
Can Nina Hagen become Germany's most important contribution to radical pop culture since Brecht? CHRIS BOHN learns about growing up on the wrong side of ...
Herman Brood: Brood Back On The Nest
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 23 June 1979
German rock star Nina Hagen's upset because her Dutch rock 'n' rolling boyfriend, Herman Brood, has disappeared. Will our intrepid CHRIS BOHN track him down? ...
Led Zeppelin: In Through The Out Door (Swan Song)
Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 11 August 1979
THE GRAND illusion was popped way back when I was taking my O-levels. Then Led Zeppelin 2 fulfilled the noble function of releasing all the ...
Angelic Upstarts: Someone Else's Fight
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 18 August 1979
INTOLERANCE FALLS like a heavy pall over the Angelic Upstarts – only they won't lie still and let it settle. Follow them round for a ...
UK Subs: No Change For UK Subs
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 18 August 1979
Finding that tribal punk is still alive...and kicking ...
Bob Dylan: Slow Train Coming (CBS)
Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 26 August 1979
DYLAN HAS switched roles once too often. We've followed him patiently through his phases as rebellious folk singer, rock and roll outlaw, musing mystic, contented ...
Bob Marley & the Wailers: Bob Marley: Survival (Island)
Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 29 September 1979
SOME PEOPLE mellow as they get older. Bob Marley gets angrier and wiser. Following the relaxed, self-fulfilled Exodus and Kaya, Survival marks a surprising but ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 13 October 1979
Wire don't sit comfortably in the publicity man's gullet. They're not easily categorised, seemingly spurning the hype-market. But they do conform in one way; they ...
Buzzcocks, Joy Division: Buzzcocks/Joy Division: Rainbow, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 17 November 1979
ON CURRENT FORM, Joy Division should have been the best thing happening on Friday night, and the Buzzcocks camp knew it too. Consequently, they treated ...
Public Image Ltd: Metal Box (Virgin Metal 1)
Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 24 November 1979
Confessions of a pop performer ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 29 December 1979
INSIDE THE CLASH'S new rehearsal studio, under a railway bridge somewhere in South London, Joe Strummer is singing a slow country blues about rolling boxcars, ...
Leonard Cohen: Haunted By Spector: Leonard Cohen
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 5 January 1980
Leonard Cohen’s voyage to the bottom of his soul is over. He’s back on top and is finding rock’n’roll fun too... ...
John Foxx, Ultravox: John Foxx: Technological man
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 19 January 1980
It's not the machine that is evil, nor the synthesizer. Man canuse technology and benefit. Nevertheless, John Foxx, the quiet man, still likes to sing. ...
A Certain Ratio: 'Looking For A Certain Ratio' (B. Eno)
Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 2 February 1980
While 2-Tone revive the fashions of the Sixties, A Certain Ratio are stretching their legs towards the future. In fact, since drummer Donald Johnson joined ...
Joy Division: University of London Union
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 16 February 1980
AH, THE HORROR, the horror... where's Colonel Kurtz? Somehow the demented Brando figure is there, spiritually leading the new dance. Like him, today's purveyors have ...
The Clash, Mikey Dread, Joe Ely: The Clash, Joe Ely, Mikey Dread: Electric Ballroom/Lyceum, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 23 February 1980
Fings ain't what they used to be ...
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 28 June 1980
THE FACTORY roadshow has taken to bringing their own clown to put on between acts, his name's Kevin Hewick and he attacks his dopey revelations ...
The Clash, Holly & the Italians: Hammersmith Palais, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 28 June 1980
Myth Man In The Hammersmith Palais ...
Public Image Ltd: Corporation Executive Report to Shareholders
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 5 July 1980
PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED and America hardly seemed made for each other. Yet having successfully defied Britain's star caste systems and ugly myth makers, earlier this ...
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 6 September 1980
Bowled over by a Skid ...
Secret Affair: Behind Closed Doors
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 13 September 1980
THOUGH MOD never got as far as its second summer, it served Secret Affair's purpose. Seeing the movement coming, Ian Page used its momentum to ...
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 20 September 1980
BUBBLEGUM'S BACK and it sounds wonderful. In contemporary terms the Skids are to The Clash and the post-modernists what Sweet were to Slade and Bowie: ...
Simple Minds: Travel Broadens Simple Minds
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 4 October 1980
ONCE YOU get onto the European mainland, it's hard not to be infected by the virulent strain of fatalism sweeping the continent. En route to ...
The Ruts: Ruts: Grin And Bear It (Virgin)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 11 October 1980
AT THEIR best The Ruts embodied the virtues of second division punk without resorting to the Bash Street antics of third generation comics like the ...
Fad Gadget: Art of work but not redundant
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 6 December 1980
Fad Gadget's Fireside Favourites A doleful tale of a sweet and sickly apocalypse ...
Eric Random: Random Holds His Own
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 1981
ERIC RANDOM concerts these days aren't the personal health hazards they once were when he, Pete Shelley and assorted Mancunians used to kick up an ...
Robert Fripp, The Lounge Lizards: Discipline, Lounge Lizards: Her Majesty's Theatre, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
IN THE LOBBY OF THE LIZARD KINGS ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 16 May 1981
FROM PUNK TO POMP? THE CURE PONDER THE PITFALLS OF FLOYD'S SOUND SYSTEM. CHRIS BOHN LISTENS FOR THE FLAWS ...
Kraftwerk: A Computer Date with a Showroom Dummy
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 13 June 1981
And we'll fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n auf der Autobahn — until big daddy takes our Volkswagen away. Chris Bohn and Anton Corbijn do the Spanish hustle with Kraftwerk ...
Pink Floyd: Another Pinkie Hogs The Limelight: Pink Floyd's The Wall: Earls Court, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 20 June 1981
PART ONE ...
Crass, Poison Girls: 100 Club, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 20 June 1981
JUST CRASS ...
Duran Duran: Duran Duran (EMI)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 4 July 1981
D'RONE D'RONE ...
Wire: Document And Eyewitness At Notre Dame Hall And The Electric Ballroom (Rough Trade)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 1 August 1981
OUT OF SHEER perversity, it would seem, Wire stopped functioning 18 months ago. Going by their chronology of events we shouldn't have been surprised, as ...
Simple Minds: Sons And Fascination/Sister Feelings Call (Virgin)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 5 September 1981
AFTER THREE LPs and a label switch, Simple Minds really should know better than to be persisting with an "innocents abroad" strategy. While they might ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 12 September 1981
Chris Bohn investigates some strange happenings with Soft Cell and Top Of The Pops ...
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 17 October 1981
FEATURING: 'Ice Age', 'Walked In Line' and The Kill' (from '77 sessions), 'Glass' (from Factory Sampler) 'Exercise One' and The Sound Of Music' (John Peel sessions), ...
Laurie Anderson: Riverside Studio, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 17 October 1981
PERFORMANCE HEART... ...
Nico, Velvet Underground: In The Nico Time
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, Spring 1981
HEY-HO, is it really that time of the decade already? Once again Nico has surreptitiously floated into the public consciousness – just when she was ...
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 2 January 1982
Tart, amoral, stupid, crass, vulgar… and nearly very famous ...
A Certain Ratio: Sextet (Factory)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 16 January 1982
THE A CERTAIN RATIO anatomy of melancholy breaks down to a curdling rattle of bones, distant whistles, a few whispered words and a trickle of ...
M: **Page D — Ready** International Language: Robin Scott
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 16 January 1982
Chris Bohn hears some famous last words ...
The Virgin Prunes: Virgin Prunes: The Venue, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 23 January 1982
THE VIRGIN Prunes are Irish. This has got nothing whatsoever to do with the comically inept state of their performance art, but it might explain ...
Lou Reed: Clean Living And Dirty Looks
Report by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 6 March 1982
FLANKED BY his wife Sylvia to his right and his management on his left, Lou Reed lords it over the press gathering from a sofa ...
Boomtown Rats: The Boomtown Rats: Enter The Drag
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 13 March 1982
THE ASTOR CINEMA is an old style movie emporium painted in ugly pastel shades and shoddily decorated with the poor likenesses of Meryl Streep and ...
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 24 April 1982
AS A PERFORMER, Laurie Anderson is little short of phenomenal: a slight Chaplinesque figure, she's as much vaudeville as she is artist, in that she's ...
The Raincoats: Raincoats Off The Peg
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 14 August 1982
IF ORDER is considered the new subversion, then what becomes of the untidy old subversives? They're redefined as anachronisms, treated affectionately as museum pieces or ...
Scritti Politti: Natty Design Or Grand Illusion?
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 4 September 1982
THE WEEKEND before our final confrontation, Scritti Politti's Green went shopping for clothes for his debut Top Of The Pops appearance, its confirmation depending on ...
Neil Young: A Bad Case Of The Shakes…
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 2 October 1982
Neil Young: Birmingham NEC ...
Orange Juice: From A Postcard To A Postage Stamp
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 2 October 1982
HATE – WITHOUT wanting to sound faddish about such a thing – is once more where the heart is. ...
The The: The Definitive Article
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 9 October 1982
THE THE? An agitated stutter? No, the definitive article, boasts The one and only The Matt Johnson with a cheeky, if none too convincing grin. ...
Bauhaus, David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust: From Bowie To Bauhaus… The Key To Decades Conceits
Essay by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 23 October 1982
So you've seen Bauhaus performing 'Ziggy Stardust' on TV and you still don't believe in reincarnation? Ziggy, who entered the material world via David Bowie, ...
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 18 January 1983
NEITHER RARE nor particularly well done, the latest Bowie collection of alternative cuts, outtakes, live run throughs, flipsides and flops is hardly likely to endear ...
Soft Cell: Tawdry Latenight Weepies
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 29 January 1983
IMITATION OF life or bigger than life?When Marc Almond and David Ball breeze into their record company's press office for this meeting, they're immediately swept ...
Einstürzende Neubauten: Let's Hear It For The Untergang Show
Profile and Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 5 February 1983
"The destructive character is cheerful," boast Berlin's new cold stars Einstürzende Neubauten (Collapsing New Buildings) who have armed themselves with road drills, sledgehammers and axes ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 12 February 1983
IT'S ALREADY well known how the great Casting Director in the sky limited women to a few suffocating roles in American popular culture: the mother ...
The Angry Samoans: Angry Samoans: Back From Samoa (Bad Trip — US import)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 26 February 1983
SPLUTTER, SPLATTER SEX SHOCK HORROR ...
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark: Dazzle Ships (Virgin)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 5 March 1983
THIS IS Radio Bohn calling, bringing you news of a bloodless mutiny aboard the good ship Dazzle, which has put the helm in the hands ...
The Birthday Party: The Sound and The Fury
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 26 March 1983
Reared under the hothouse conditions of Melbourne, London and Berlin, The Birthday Party's bad seed has finally blossomed into a magnificent demon flower. On one ...
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 9 April 1983
Maniac cab driver Chris Bohn takes you on a ride to the terminal zone with the New Zealand / Chinese alliance called SPK ...
David Bowie: Merry Christmas Mr Bowie
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 16 April 1983
I: The Missing YearsDavid Bowie's new film, The Hunger, opens not with the focus fixed firmly on the star but with a cameo sequence of ...
Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (Virgin)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 7 May 1983
A Luxury You Can't Afford ...
The Residents: Hammersmith Odeon, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 9 July 1983
EPIC MOLES ...
New Order: When There's No More Room in Hell: New Order Prowl the New York Streets
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 23 July 1983
In the three years since they emerged from the shadow of Joy Division, New Order have become the world's leading and most wilfully independent group. ...
Kid Creole & the Coconuts: Doppelganger (Ze/Island)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 10 September 1983
BETWEEN OFF The Coast Of Me and Doppelganger lies an interval of only three years, yet already the odyssey of Kid Creole's search for his ...
Gary Numan: Warriors (Beggars Banquet)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 17 September 1983
NUMAN — OLD HAT... ...
Art Of Noise: a Spanner in the Works
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 8 October 1983
ART OF NOISE IS THE FIRST RELEASE ON TREVOR HORN'S AND PAUL MORLEY'S ZANG TUUM TUMB LABEL. NOT DISCO. NOT POP. YET NOT UNTUNEFUL. CHRIS ...
Fad Gadget, Siouxsie & The Banshees: Siouxsie & the Banshees, Fad Gadget: Royal Albert Hall, London
Live Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 8 October 1983
YOU MAY BE A NIHILIST BUT YOU AIN'T NO F*@!KIN' ...
Quando Quango: When To Quando And When To Quango
Profile and Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 5 November 1983
MANCHESTER'S HONKY TONKIN' DISCO EXPORT ...
Einsturzende Neubauten: Driller Thriller
Report by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 14 January 1984
METAL MARAUDERS IN THE MALL ...
Holger Hiller: Poltergeist In The Machine
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 28 January 1984
Hiller's alive to the music of sound. Holger, a genial Hamburger, has spent the years since leaving Palais Schaumburg completing a remarkable LP of Dada ...
John Cale: Rebel Without a Sanity Clause: John Cale’s Caribbean Sunset (Ze/Island)
Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 28 January 1984
HARDBOILED GOING on soft-headed, John Cale as chronicler of the man of action invariably topples over into drunken, unremitting and participatory relish of the deeds ...
ABC, Sex Pistols, Ultravox: Julian Temple: From a Dandy to a Rogue
Interview by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 19 February 1984
PORTRAIT OF THE CAMBRIDGE FOP AS FILM MAKER Julian Temple, a Cambridge history graduate, was rescued from the National Film School, by The Great Rock ...
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