The Dead’s first album for Arista saw them teamed with a producer and backed – without their knowledge – by an orchestra. Steve Sutherland preludes the 180g reissue
The Eno documentary recently shown in cinemas caused a bit of a fanfare because, characteristically of our eggheaded pal Brian, it wasn’t just any common-or-garden doc covering his illustrious career. Instead, it employed groundbreaking technology to accomplish something that had never been done before. Using generative software designed to sequence scenes and create transitions out of interviews with Eno and an archive of never-before-seen footage, each showing featured different scenes and music in a different order. Every time it played, it was a new experience.
Although ostensibly a band album, Television’s 1977 debut owes much to the vision of frontman Tom Verlaine. Steve Sutherland tunes in as the 180g reissue drops
There’s a quote attributed to Brian Eno that says: ‘The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band’. Television’s Marquee Moon is a bit like that. Very few people bought it and although it was such a complex curate’s egg that I doubt many bands formed because of it, the album is famous for being one of the most written-about, talked-about and lauded albums of all time.
There’s pop and rock brilliance to be found in this 1970 album from the New York four-piece – even if it tore them apart. Steve Sutherland hears the 180g reissue
The other day I was sorting through boxes and files in the attic when I came upon a faded, almost illegible old fax. Squinting at it under a bright lamp, I discovered it was from, of all people, Moe Tucker, legendary drummer with The Velvet Underground.
The Velvet Underground founder’s fourth solo LP is the perfect distillation of his genre-crossing genius, says Steve Sutherland, as he faces up to the 180g reissue
Pop quiz! Which artist musically links Happy Mondays, Nick Drake, Sham 69, The Stooges, Patti Smith, Brian Eno, Jonathan Richman, Nico and Squeeze? Answer: Lou Reed. Only joking! It’s his old Velvet Underground buddy John Cale, of course, otherwise why would we be mentioning it here?
Exclusive Duran Duran demos, UB40’s iconic sessions, the birth of 2-Tone records... Steve Sutherland on a studio that would help put the Midlands on the musical map
The marriage of Island Records and the prolific songsmith got off to a flying start with this fresh-faced pop/rock classic. Steve Sutherland kicks back with the 180g LP
I’m not really what you’d call the campaigning type but in the days when I edited HFN we launched a couple nonetheless. The most famous was ‘Jarvis Is Innocent’, occasioned by the Pulp frontgeezer getting himself arrested for stagecrashing Michael Jackson at the 1996 BRIT Awards. Within a few hours we had t-shirts on sale in the street outside gig venues all around the country, the funds raised, as I recall, contributing to his legal aid. And, of course, much fun and many games were to be had by all.
The Fab Four reached a new level of musical ambition – and fame – when their third album topped the charts. Sixty years on, Steve Sutherland hears the 180g reissue
Some say it’s a dominant 9th of F in the key of C. Others claim it’s a poly-triad ii7/V in A flat major. Still others insist it’s a G7 with added 9th and suspended 4th or a superimposition of Dm, F, and G.
Steve Sutherland invites you to shrink wrap ’n’ roll as he tells the story of a studio that once made plastics before producing classics by the likes of The Stranglers and The Cure
Because Bruxelles – or Brussels if you prefer – is not on anyone’s list of the world’s most famous rock ’n’ roll capitals, chances are you won’t have heard of Belgium’s ICP Recording Studios. If truth be told, my only memories associating the land of chocolate and waffles to anything vaguely musical were the unfortunate fact that Scots hooligan rocker Alex Harvey died of a heart attack while waiting for a ferry in Zeebrugge back in 1982.
This genre-straddling, smash-hit debut LP from the British band laid down a template for others to follow. Smooth operator Steve Sutherland hears the 180g reissue
About a year ago the writer, editor and founder of Rolling Stone magazine Jann Wenner was unceremoniously booted off the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Foundation board of directors. His misdemeanour? In an interview with the New York Times about his new book The Masters, featuring conversations he’d conducted with artists such as John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, etc, he claimed that he’d decided not to include any women or black artists because, ‘none of them were articulate enough on this intellectual level’.
It was where Pink Floyd built their wall, Sade soothed her soul and a Bach pianist worked on soundtracks... So what does Brad Pitt have to do with it? Steve Sutherland explains
What's the weirdest drink you have ever had? I've guzzled a fair few strange ones in my time, including a gruesome concoction in New York involving what looked like Swarfega mixed with cream. But the one that topped the lot was something or other from a barnacled bottle salvaged from a galleon that had been part of the Spanish Armada sunk in battle in the English Channel in 1588.