Guitarist
True Colours
Three Grand Auditorium models from the Czech Republic manufacturer's catalogue, with price points varying from entry level to top end. What's the difference? Let's find out...
7 min |
June 2023
Guitarist
STRETCHING TIME
Some might say a new guitar needs a few weeks to settle in and that there’s no point in thinking about mods or the like until it has. Dave Burrluck doesn’t quite agree…
7 min |
June 2023
Guitarist
GRAHAM NASH
As the CSNY legend releases the \"most personal record\" of his half-century career, he tells us about speaking truth to power, selling his Woodstock D-45, and making up with David Crosby in his final days
7 min |
June 2023
Classic Rock
Arielle 6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT...
The guitarist and singer-songwriter on choirs, clowning and heartto-hearts with Brian May, ahead of her game-raising new album
3 min |
June 2023
Classic Rock
SPIRITS PAST SPIRITS PRESENT
Re-made and remodelled, and with a critically acclaimed new album that echoes moments from their post-punk past, The Damned head into the future still with plenty to offer and to thrill
9 min |
June 2023
Record Collector
Lost and Found
In the 80s, the UK had The Smiths – America had The Smithereens: an emblematic fourpiece 60s-referencing college radio/alt-indie band combining elements of girl group pop and beat-era rock; melodic with hints of mayhem. And, as Bill Kopp reports, New Jersey’s forgotten heroes are still out there, doing it…
10+ min |
May 2023
Record Collector
Hey Jude
Courteeners seemed to rise without trace – stadium fillers, particularly in the north, yet barely visible press-wise. They have just scored their first-ever UK No 1 album with their 2008 debut, the recently reissued St Jude, breaking Official Chart records for the LP with the longest time between release and charting at pole position, a feat matched only by The Beatles and the Stones with their recent reissues. And yet mainman Liam Fray remains modest to a fault, despite his “gobshite” reputation. Mapping the rendezvous: John Earls.
10 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
"I didn't know how to deal with being a frontman"
In 1981, Haircut 100 came bursting out of Beckenham, all Argyle sweaters and sou’westers, purveying a new kind of jangly, poppy Britfunk, equal parts Monkees and Earth, Wind & Fire. Face and NME darlings, they soon matched critical respect with the screams of teenage fans, but already by summer ’82 the wheels had come off, singer and songwriter Nick Heyward was suffering a nervous breakdown and he left the band in acrimonious circumstances. In the 90s he enjoyed a period of solo success, with hits in the States and a period of late affirmation when he signed to the Creation label. Now, though, all hatchets have been buried and the Haircuts have reunited, with live dates and talk of a new album. “Till death us do part,” Heyward tells Adrian Thrills
10+ min |
May 2023
Record Collector
Talking Heads – 'We thought "down with Arena Rock"'
With the Remain in Love Tour about to happen and a reissue of stop making sense imminent, people are talking about talking heads again. Not that they ever really stopped. With their adventures in psychedelicised funk and dub-spacious art disco, they essayed a new form of anti-'rockist' music, all polyrhythmic colourmotion helmed by Brian Eno, effecting a clean break with tradition. A once in a lifetime proposition, in terms of songwriting and Studio Sonics, they made leaps between - especially albums the first four - matched only by The Beatles. Come into the blue again as David interviews the stubbs greatest rhythm section of the post-punk period, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, about the band, their out-of-this-world music and their eventual, inevitable split, while Terry Staunton tracks their lightspeed evolution on LP and Daryl Easlea gets discographical. Take a look!
10+ min |
May 2023
Record Collector
"When I walk onstage, I'm like a plumber"
Pete Townshend talks in-depth about The Who live and his attitude towards the band’s history of performance. Along with news about an impending Who’s Next reissue and the latest extrapolation of his notorious Lifehouse project, he expands on the idea of The Who as the quintessential purveyors of high-energy rock’n’roll, only to simultaneously debunk it. “I don’t have fun performing,” he tells Rob Hughes
10+ min |
April 2023
BBC Music Magazine
'I'm fine playing men on stage - and my private life is my private life'
The BBC Music Magazine Interview
9 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
33 1/3 minutes with... Harvey Lisberg
Music entrepreneur Harvey Lisberg managed Manchester’s most commercially successful bands of the 60s and 70s (Herman’s Hermits and 10cc, respectively). He was also a partner in Strawberry Studios which provided a springboard for the region’s next generation of musicians, including Joy Division. He guided the careers of numerous prominent musical figures, then in the 70s and 80s, he managed snooker’s glimmer twins – Alex Higgins and Jimmy White – while also looking after the likes of Sad Café and Barclay James Harvest. These days, he looks after his publishing interests from his Palm Springs home.
4 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
IT HAPPENED WHEN?
Peter Baker, of cult synth project Electronic Ensemble, tells Ian Shirley about the track that became an airplay hit in Europe
6 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
THE ENGINE ROOM
The unsung heroes who helped forge modern music | This month: Vicki Wickham
4 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?
As melodic and lyrically masterful as ever, Ron Sexsmith mines the past on a potent new album, The Vivian Line, inspired by leaving the big city for more humble surroundings. But is he, as longtime cheerleader Elvis Costello once suggested, still “cursed” by being born out of time? Terry Staunton takes a road trip to find out.
9 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
The cost of collecting crisis
Do the rising prices of records, CDs and memorabilia threaten cutbacks by collectors? Joe Geesin reads the runes
7 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
TAPE HUNTERS
Former RRPG Editor Ian Shirley put out dozens of LPs for RC’s Rare Record Club. Here he spills the beans on the mastertapes behind some archive releases
7 min |
May 2023
Record Collector
FIFE STAR
Twenty-five years in showbusiness? Hardly believable for such a perennially innovative artist as Steve Mason. But that milestone, along with the release of his fifth solo album, Brothers & Sisters, seems a good occasion for Mason to look back, album by album - in reverse order - over his recorded output under various guises since The Beta Band made their debut in 1998. Soul brother: Daryl Easlea
10+ min |
May 2023
Record Collector
MOD ALMIGHTY
Eddie Piller – DJ, radio show host, founder of Acid Jazz Records and all-round mod acolyte – has a new book out, Clean Living Under Difficult Circumstances – A Life In Mod. “The publisher asked me to write about my early life,” he explains. “He was shocked when he saw the manuscript. People don’t realise how violent it was back in 1979.
3 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
From brush to bow
Close friends with leading musicians of his day, the great English painter Thomas Gainsborough was a keen player himself. Michael White visits Gainsborough's House in Suffolk to find out more
7 min |
May 2023
Guitar World
FREE BIRD
A personal tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd's ultimate survivor, GARY ROSSINGTON - 1951-2023
5 min |
June 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Beethoven reframed
Gianandrea Noseda's new symphony cycle reevaluates the composer through the music of George Walker and the art of Mo Willems
6 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
György Ligeti
Ivan Hewett traces the life and career of the great avant-garde composer and investigates what lies at the heart of his enigmatic genius
6 min |
May 2023
Guitar World
Hermanos Gutiérrez
THIS SWISS DUO LEARNED TO TRUST THEIR INSTINCTS ON THEIR LATEST ALBUM OF HIGH-DESERT INSTRUMENTAL GUITAR JOURNEYS
2 min |
June 2023
Guitar World
Malina Moye
THE UNCOMPROMISING STRAT-LOVING SOUTHPAW RETURNS WITH DIRTY, A LONG-PLAYER THAT REPRESENTS THE CONSTANT EVOLUTION OF HER SOUND
2 min |
June 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Notes from childhood
As pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason releases a new album devoted to the music of youth, she speaks to Jessica Duchen about being a role model, her dedication to self-improvement and growing up in a famously musical family
10 min |
May 2023
BBC Music Magazine
Music that changed me
Simon Callow Actor
3 min |
May 2023
Guitar World
David Lindley (1944-2023)
HONORING ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST DISTINCT SLIDE PLAYERS MULTI-INSTRUMENTALISTS OF ALL TIME AND
5 min |
June 2023
Guitar World
Back on the Prowl
SATCHEL STEEL PANTHER'S RESIDENT SHREDDER - DISCUSSES EVERYTHING FROM PAUL GILBERT'S PICKING METHOD, SUPER-EXPENSIVE STRATS, WHY HE DOESN'T USE AMPS IN THE STUDIO AND LET US NOT FORGET! - THE BAND'S NEW ALBUM, ON THE PROWL
5 min |
June 2023
Guitar World
The DEATH WISH TWO
After teaming up for a fiery EP late last year, celebrated blueser Samantha Fish and Texas troublemaker Jesse Dayton have returned with their first long-player, Death Wish Blues
7 min |