Ian Gittins interviews Moby, 25th March 1995
July 31, 2008
Ian Gittins interviews Moby on the release of Everything Is Wrong. Taken from Melody Maker 25th March 1995
Elsewhere in 7 point type…
David Stubbs reviews Ecstasy and Wine by My Bloody Valentine and North Pole by The Blipvert Bigtop.
Ian Gittins reviews Stewed To The Gills by Gaye Bikers on Acid.
Steve Sutherland reviews The Lover In Me by Sheena Easton because someone had to
Ian Watson reviews S*M*A*S*H’s mini-LP
Dave Simpson reviews The Very Best of Cream
David Stubbs reviews Massive Attack vs The Mad Professor
Simon Reynolds on recommended Krautrock records.
On reading David Stubbs admission that he used to make up his record review catalogue numbers (towards the bottom of the page) I was really curious to find an example and test the theory. This is the first I’ve found.
I’m not posting to prove a point at all, but it does seem that in this particular example the catalogue number isn’t made up – check the catalogue number here. I’m slightly disappointed now though – I was all set to file a late complaint. Will keep looking for further evidence.
You’d imagine that the implementation of something like this would be out of some form of long held tradition or legacy from ye olden dayes but the early (from this blog’s period) Maker reviews never had catalogue numbers. All of which begs the question – whose idea was this and why did they think it was necessary?
Keeping with the Stubbs theme of this post I also read this today which reminded me of the very, very funny Mr. Agreeable rant on the subject of Virgin Media. There’s also a very funny quasi spat between Stubbs & Mueller re Krautrock vs Cuntry on Facebook from the time they had some sort of DJ battle – read from the bottom of the page up.
Oh and S*M*A*S*H were always shite and we did forget they existed. No, I never saw them live. No, I don’t care. Taylor Parkes interview with S*M*A*S*H here – I think he concurs. Curiously the article begins by saying he reviewed the Mini-LP so I’m a little confused by this bit but it worth reading all the same. That last link from this blog “exploring the work of obscure and overlooked bands” that links to Archived Music Press.
I met one of my musical heroes last night. The conventional wisdom goes that you’re not supposed to meet your heroes because they’ll only end up disappointing you, but I think it’s more so that you can’t make a tit of yourself. He didn’t. Let’s hope I didn’t but I have my doubts.
The Primitives on the cover of NME, 22nd August 1988
July 27, 2008
The Primitives on the cover of NME, 22nd August 1988. Photo by Stephen Speller.
Various album reviews, 12th November 1994
July 26, 2008
Yo! Yo! Yo! Simon Price in da house y’all. Various album reviews including Coolio’s It Takes A Thief by Simon Price. Taken from Melody Maker, 12th November 1994.jpg
And then Coolio lost all his coolio with Gangster’s Paradise. I think they bonded over hairstyles as alternative forms of sculpture.
Elsewhere David Bennun reviews a Best of Bon Jovi whose video for You Give Love A Bad Name was “…a style bible for a million proto-Butt-Heads and a frightening number of Germans – but then any figure greater than one constitutes a frightening number of Germans” which made me smile again given Obama’s recent Kennedy-like speech in Berlin.
Tried to dig up some info on Jamie T Conway and drew a blank. I did however find this which I subsequently discovered to be a blog belonging to the singer in Gravenhurst, a very fine band that I’d urge you to investigate further if you haven’t heard of their music before.
Finally many thanks to AnyMajorDude who wrote a little review of this site on his excellent blog. Fans of Mick Hucknall should avoid visiting at present but for everyone else there’s much to enjoy.
Talk Talk Talk – Mr. Agreeable, 12th November 1994
July 25, 2008
Is this one of the Derek Kent “interviews with top female celebrities of the day” you were trying to recall Taylor?
Here’s an idea that’ll probably never happen but if the Cretinous, Useless, Negligible Tosser of the Week happens to be you then get in touch so we can get a present day picture posted up to go with these scans. There’s an outside chance you’ll tempt Mr. Agreeable to savage you a second time and God knows Green Day deserve it.
By the way, for those curious about that strange cherub in a box in the bottom left hand corner, it was the teaser ad campaign for The Stone Roses ‘second coming’, Love Spreads.
Damon Albarn on the cover of NME, 16th September 1995
July 24, 2008
Damon Albarn on the cover of NME, 16th September 1995. Photo by Kevin Cummins.
Anyone that’s visited this site a few times will probably have deduced my preference for the Melody Maker but NME did generally have the best covers. Damon’s looking pretty in this picture non? He’s on my mind as I went to see Monkey: Journey to the West at the Royal Opera House tonight.
UPDATE: For the interview from this issue click here
Everett True profiles Hole in Sidelines, 15th June 1991
July 23, 2008
Everett True profiles Hole in Sidelines. Taken from Melody Maker 15th June 1991.
“Courtney in her long and varied history (she’s only 24) has lived through more traumas than most of you f***ing lamebrains will experience in your life.”
Quite. If only Everett could have known then that she was just getting started. I remember when MM reported those first, very early, barely coherent USENET posts of hers around 1994 and she’s still fucking doing it (click Courtney Love -> Blog). Now click into the photos section if you dare. Finally reacquaint yourself with all Courtney’s uppers and downers via her extensive Wikipedia entry here.
Was looking around for something Nirvana related just so I could post this (below), which I saw for the first time this afternoon. Presumably this is well known material I’ve somehow missed but guessing it’ll be new to quite a few of you too. File under bizarre.
Highlights at
0.22 – Gary rips the T-Shirt from his hulking frame
1.26 – Gary does the can-can to ‘my libido..’
1.40 – Mark, surely not for the first time, drops to his knees and slowly deflates under the pressure of Gary’s punishing vocal
2.38 – Jason’s crushing Hank Williams style solo perforates every hymen within the first six rows of the stage
Various live reviews including The Soup Dragons/Blur at Brixton Academy, 5th January 1991
July 22, 2008
Various live reviews taken from Melody Maker 5th January 1991.
Ian Watson reviews Soup Daragons / Blur at Briston Academy and Hothouse Flowers at Wembley Arena…my God, were Hothouse Flowers really ever this big? Michael Bonner reviews Aztec Camera at Brixton Academy and Loop at the Kilburn National. Ngaire reviews Test Department at the Subterania
Many thanks to Andrew Mueller for writing a little review of this site on his blog. It’s nice to cause the tiniest ripple in the ultimate pond. Andrew should count himself lucky though – check this toe curling introduction to Galaxie 500 from Ngaire.
I feel like I should hold back on what I say here a little these days but I think this post puts it well, although I never had one of those hooded tops. I did have one of those Penguin Classic T-Shirts that you can see a young Damon wearing in the photo though.
Anyway it’s not just Ngaire. Here’s Caitlin Moran on the shortlived Naked City.
Which reminds me of this moment of TV perfection.
Finally if Brian Ferry ever covered a Beloved song it might sound a bit like this.
Anyone else able got any related gems from youtube they’d care to share?
Everett True’s guide to the Sub Pop rosta, 18th March 1989.
You can tell the grunge scene is still developing – check those cowboy boots on the crowd surfer! That said nothing would please me more than if someone from the gig photo got in touch.
UPDATE: Thanks to LameStain blog for linking and having plenty more to say about Grunge from a US perspective. This post also discussed with affection on the ILXOR forum
