Jesus & Mary Chain on the cover of Melody Maker, 25th April 1987

Jesus & Mary Chain on the cover of Melody Maker, 25th April 1987.

A *very* 80′s looking cover indeed.

Check out The View on Channel Bee. Is this the Mary Chain’s legacy?

Update: Ack! The link wasn’t permanent. Music / Studio interviews / The View (studio) 29/01/2009

Bono on the cover of Melody Maker, 14th March 1987

Bono on the cover of Melody Maker, 14th March 1987. Photo unknown.

Mick Jones on the cover of Melody Maker, 7th February 1987

Mick Jones on the cover of Melody Maker, 7th February 1987. Photo by Tom Sheehan.

The Christians on the cover of Melody Maker, 17th January 1987

The Christians on the cover of Melody Maker, 17th January 1987. Photo by Paul Rider.

OK, so I know it’s not the most scintillating start, but the piece on the New York artpop scene might be good and there’s clearly a live review of Peter Gabriel I can post for Taylor.

February beckons.

An announcement concerning the future of this blog

Whilst there is still more material to post from the original pile of papers I started out with back in May last year I feel that I’ve now posted most of the “best stuff”. Allied to that, my familiarity with these papers led to a certain listlessness on my part to keep the blog going, which is sad because I have enjoyed doing this in a perverse kind of way. So the choice became increasingly clear – end the blog early or find new material.

Now occasionally people have written offering to send me some scans from their collection and I’ve always replied to the effect that the standard of the scan really matters to me. I’ve asked to borrow copies I don’t have to scan and then return but it’s never amounted to anything – probably because I came across like a arrogant prick. But you see whilst I’ve enjoyed and warmed to providing the odd bit of (low quality) commentary, I do think that the standard of the scans here is of a high quality and a large factor in this blog’s success. So I started toying with the idea of buying a few more copies myself, not only to have something fresh to post, but also to satisfy my own curiosity and interest, which has been piqued simply as a result of starting this thing up.

Which leads me to the point of this overly long preamble. Today, in a two fingered salute to our impending financial meltdown, I bought a whole pile of new Melody Makers.

Does anyone have any clever ideas for how I go about scanning this new batch? The random thing is easy to start and keeps Mueller on his toes but it does get hard for me to remember what’s been scanned and what hasn’t. I also wonder if I should perhaps date the posts to match the month and year the scan comes from. Moving forward I need a system. For now I’m just going to start chronologically scanning the cover of each new paper I have while I think about it further but if you’ve got a better idea about what will work best then please let me know.

Here endeth the announcement.

Backlash featuring Alex Petridis, 22nd July 1989

While skimming through this issue the Backlash page caught my eye due to one of the published letters being from one Alex Petridis. For those of you that don’t recognise that name, Alex has grown up to become Alexis Petridis, The Guardian’s head rock and pop critic. Not sure what prompted the shift from Alex to Alexis, and very unsure about Push’s response – Todd Rundgren!

Update: Via the unbridled joys of Twitter this explanation from the horse’s mouth. “I’m afraid the name change is down to MM’s crappy subbing. I’ve always been Alexis.”

Simple Minds on the cover of Melody Maker, 22nd July 1989

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Don’t you forget about Jim Kerr! What’s that? You have forgotten? Well according to Wikipedia a new Simple Minds album is pencilled in for early 2009. I’m literally breathless with anticpation, as I’m sure, are you.

Jonh Wilde interviews Fish, 28th October 1989

Jonh Wilde interviews Fish, 28th October 1989. Photo by Joe Dilworth

This is for Taylor Parkes….”a fucking flute!”  – thanks Taylor, I laughed my head off.

It doesn’t get much more rock and roll than press shots in a freshly plough field propped with a tractor and a German Shepherd now does it? And I’m sure everyone can remember where they were when Fish split with Marillion – the cider flowed freely in the leafier parts of middle England that night I can tell you.

But the last I can remember of Fish was seeing him on telly in a spliff rolling competition with Tony Banks (the M.P. not the exulted Genesis keyboard player) about a hundred years ago.

What is Fish up to today I thought? Well he’s a Sony award winning Radio DJ and has churned out a steady succession of solo records since 1989 to the present. So there you go.

David Bennun interviews The Chemical Brothers, 20th January 1996

David Bennun interviews The Chemical Brothers, 20th January 1996

Been listening to Stephen Jones’ (him from Babybird) Almost Cured Of Sadness for the first time today, co-incidentally Babybird had their big hit with You’re Gorgeous in 1996.

I can’t help thinking that if this record came out today, fronted by a bunch of pretty teenage Hoxton chancers, the N.M.E. would be falling over themselves to call them the future of music. Or something. Our very own Andrew Mueller gives a rather sniffy review of it on Amazon but since when did any of us trust music journalists?

Judge for yourselves. Here’s one of the tracks I’ve picked at random.

Stephen Jones, Someplace Too Faraway

Simon Price reviews Minty live at Feet First, 20th January 1996

Simon Price reviews Minty live at Feet First, 20th January 1996.

Nicola Bowery née Bateman gets naked again. Yawn. But if you’ve never heard of Leigh Bowery then you should definitely read up  some more. Here’s the obligatory wikipedia link for starters. And if you find yourself in a good bookshop then there is a great book full of *amazing* pictures of Leigh and his costumes which I’d strongly urge you to take a look at.

I’ve got that Useless Man single you know.

Who the hell Googles “Moby Naked”? Who? WHO??? Freaks.