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I Was A Teenage Cannibal!
I’m going to write this down while I still remember it. I’d like to apologise in advance to anyone who’s feelings I hurt, or who feels left out – or who wishes they’d been left out. Also, of course, for stating my opinions as facts. Also very grateful to have my facts corrected by anyone…
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In Church With The Detroit Cobras
(Note: since this was written Rachel Nagy died in still unexplained circumstances. A tragedy.) For me, it happened like this. In April 2003 I was getting a lift back from a session gig courtesy of Ben out of Cornershop, who also does press for Rough Trade records. Ben is a true believer in the power…
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Tryin’ To Get To Elvis
In the library today I put on the Sun Sessions to cheer me up while I was working. When it came around to the bridge of “Tryin’ To Get To You” I found myself spontaneously weeping. Curious. I couldn’t think of any concrete reason for this. I had already become quite emotional during “Milkcow…
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Gentleman Joe Strummer
Written when I heard the news of Joe Strummer’s tragically early death. —— Back in the winter of 1975, when I was 15, I went with my sister and a friend to see Roger Ruskin Spear – the ex-Bonzo Dog – put on his Kinetic Wardrobe show at Hampstead Town Hall. The supporting act was…
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For Sandy Denny (and Lester Bangs)
This is a piece I wrote in 1988. I wished that Lester Bangs had written an obituary for Sandy Denny so I decided to try and write one myself. Revised slightly in 2000. ———————————————————————— What’d she have to go and die for? This woman, this heartbreaker. Wasn’t it enough that she could make me weep…
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The Faces: We Had Three Chords And We Used Them All
I decided to make a compilation of the Faces for the usual reason: an anally retentive desire to put all my favourite tracks in one place. But even as I struggled over track listing, running order etc. I realised the essential futility of the exercise. Compilation or no, I would never stop listening to the…
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Sonny Boy Williamson: An Appreciation
That he was not a good man I have little doubt. Even now, over 25 years after he first came to these shores it takes little to get those who had business with Sonny Boy (Aleck “Rice” Miller) Williamson to spin yarns. He carried a hip flask full of whisky and also a knife. “It…
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Mourning Sad Morning: The Ballad of Free
It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but in the strict context of the then-emerging British blues boom, Free were a punk band, and “Tons Of Sobs” – their debut album from 1968 – was very much a punk album. In terms of their youth and inexperience (their average age was 18) it was patently ridiculous for…
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The Magician’s Stenographer
The Parker/ Benedetti box set has held a talismanic fascination for me since I first discovered its existence. Dean Benedetti was the man who followed Charlie Parker around taping his saxophone solos – and only his solos – for a short period in the mid-to-late 1940s. It was an act of obsessional devotion. Benedetti had…
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Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends
(this is a fictional work of imagination – with apologies to “The Troggs Tapes”) Ritchie’s partner at the time: Ritchie, there’s Jimmy Page on the phone for you. Ritchie: Oh yeah? (takes telephone) Alright, Jimmy? What’s goin’ on? Jimmy: Sutch. Fucking Sutch is what’s goin’ on. Ritchie: What about him? Jimmy: You remember that drunk…
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Diatribe 4th April 2022
Let us start with the big picture. We have been here for maybe 150,000 to 200,000 years. Not really very long in terms of natural history. Nature came up with a biped mammal – a sort of offshoot of the chimpanzee family. Actually there were three or four kinds but apparently Homo Sapiens quickly wiped…
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A Raw Deal (and meeting Errol)
In Spring of 1993 I answered a ‘Musicians Wanted’ advert in the Melody Maker. What had caught my eye was Blues-meets-Rap, which I thought was an intriguing notion. It was just around the time when jazz-meets-rap was getting underway with Q-Tip and A Tribe Called Quest and the Digable Planets and, of course, US3 and…