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Behind The Smile

Cockney Rebel’s Steve Harley took his final bow on March 17.

MAY 1979… Cheap Trick At Budokan triumphs

Eastern promise: (clockwise from above) Cheap Trick’s Robin

NWOBHM is born

No jacket required: Samson ride the New Wave…

THE WHO COME BACK

All Mod cons: (above) The Who’s Roger Daltrey

When have two bands shared a name?

Let us answer your musicrelated queries and put musical dilemmas to rest.

Shades Of The King

Win! Renauld luxury sunglasses with a real piece of Elvis.

Pete Wylie and The Crucial Three

It began when the singers of three legendary Liverpool bands collided at a Clash gig. But six weeks later, it fizzled

Such a Bright Light

Prolific, precocious, KATE BUSH’ s journey from girl genius to multifaceted art-pop phenomenon involved unlikely stops on the shelf at a sceptical label and the outer reaches of London’s pub rock circuit. Meanwhile, between her early demos and Never For Ever, childhood enthusiasms morphed into adult insights over music bold and bewitching. Still, for Bush, turning her visions into records would never be straightforward: “It’s frustrating to see something that you have been keeping transient for years suddenly become solid.”

MOJO WORKHIG! THE UK R&B EXPLOSION!

THE VARDBIRDS MANFRED MANN CENO WASHINGTON BLUES INCORPORATED & MORE

Just A Shot Away

THE HOT NEWS AND BIZ ARRE STORIES FROM PL ANET MOJO

LUCINDA, RICKIE LEE AND MORE SALUTE LOU REED ON THE POWER OF THE HEART

Wild sidesLucinda Williams and Rickie Lee Jones give

GIMME FIVE… UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

Danny Clinch, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Astor Morgan T. Rex

STEVE DIGGLE LEADS BUZZCOCKS ONWARDS TO LP ELEVEN

“You can’t recreate the past , but you

ALSO WORKING

Paul Hartnett, Alamy (2) …last month Flavor Flav

Richard Thompson

ROCK’N’ROLL CONFIDENTIAL

Aidan Moffat

Arab Strap’s merciless obser ver gawps in awe at Slint’s Spiderland (Touch And Go, 1991).

AFTER WHITE BICYCLES… JOE BOYD’S 800-PAGE ODYSSEY INTO GLOBAL RHYTHMS

EX-PINK FLOYD and R.E.M. producer Joe Boyd was

JANGLE POP SAGE MARK MULCAHY REDISCOVERS WHAT WAS LOST

Promised you a miracle: Mark Mulcahy with late-’80s

Kurt So Good

Thirty years on from Cobain’s death, photobook Charles Peterson’s Nirvana remembers the glory that was grunge.

FROM BUSKING IN PARIS TO DOROTHY PARKER’S ALGONQUIN… THE UNCANNY INTIMACIES OF MYRIAM GENDRON

Mayday alert: Myriam Gendron is caught between catharsis

INTRODUCING CASSIE KINOSHI, BIG BAND TRAILBLAZER FOR THE UK JAZZ RENAISSANCE

CASSIE KINOSHI relishes her role as part of

MOJO PLAYLIST

Listen up! For the month’s blues, dub and Arabic

The Crowded House leader and tunesmaster on family politics, band politics, Fleetwood Mac politics, and the advantages of not-quite-stardom. “There’s a certain good fortune in having a moderate amount of success,” concedes Neil Finn, OBE.

Abe Mora, Andy Cotterill THERE HE IS. IT’S

the Thrill of the Chase

For diehards, Scott Walker's Climate Of Hunter was the comeback of the decade. For insiders, the experience was extraordinary, baffling, often exasperating, as, 40 years ago, the dormant star emerged from the arena of myth to craft his strange, 'Tarkovskian' masterpiece. "When he got into the studio he completely changed," learns Ian Harrison . "It was Jekyll and Hyde."

After apprenticing in Carolina Chocolate Drops with Rhiannon Giddens, LEYLA McCALLA emerged with a whole new thing – mashing banjo, cello, New York, New Orleans and Haiti into a unique musical gumbo. The history she mines is dark, but as she insists to VICTORIA SEGAL, “I am determined to be joyful.”

Here comes the sun: joy-seeker Leyla McCalla feels

GOT LOUD IF YOU WANT IT

INCITING FRENZIES, WITH FANS “SWINGING FROM THE RAFTERS", THE YARDBIRDS FERAL RAVE-UPS PRESAGED CARACE ROCK, PUNK AND METAL, WHILE STARRING THREE LEAD CUITARISTS FOR THE ACES. SIXTY YEARS SINCE THEIR INCEPTION, THE SURVIVORS REFLECT ON THE BLUES, THE BOOZE AND THE BUST-UPS. "THE REASON WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THE VARDBIRDS NOW IS BECAUSE WE HAD THAT EDGE," THEY TELL MARK BLAKE

Dream On!

Acid, improv, cosmic coincidences and an attempt to assassinate Richard Nixon via telekinesis - all in a nacht's work for Tangerine Dream, the biggest band of Germany's '70s sonic revolution. As the prime movers in the group's rise tell Christoph Dallach in his new Krautrock oral history, "Anything could happen at any moment."

ONE FROM THE HEART

Killer grooves and stark, emotional songs have turned LABI SIFFRE's '70s albums into cratedigger gold-dust. Failure to fit a mould clapped a ceiling on his success. And yet, as he concedes, stardom would have stirred unwelcome scrutiny in unenlightened times. "I'm gay, black, an atheist, and an artist," he tells TOM DOYLE. "So, I became wary."

MINUTEMEN LAY DOWN DOUBLE NICK ELS ON THE DIME

MOJO EYEWITNESS

Alone again, naturally

Thirty years after Portishead’s debut, their singer makes her first solo album.

The Lemon Twigs

Branching out: The Lemon Twigs dream on. ★★★★

Hear my cry

Seventh album from Annie Clark brings darkness, then light.

Iron & Wine

Kind of blue: Iron & Wine, AKA Sam

Be not afraid

Reared on hip-hop, the saxophonist invites lyrical friends into his open world.

Arab Strap

Organ grinders: Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat (left) and

Follow the light

His first ‘proper’ solo LP in years. Rosanne Cash, Weyes Blood, and Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig from Lucius guest. By James McNair.

Tar quality

Californian enigma back in black on slow-cooked fourth LP. By Jim Wirth.

Mdou Moctar

Mdou Moctar (far right) and band spirit up

EXPERIMENTAL

Shane Parish ★★★★ Repertoire PALILALIA. DL/LP Journey In

FILTER ALBUMS EXTRA

Baby Seals ★★★ Chaos TRAPPED ANIMAL. CD/DL/LP Cambridge

Laibach

★★★★ Opus Dei MUTE. CD/DL/LP Slovenian provocateurs’ Freddiepowered

Sacre bleues

Previously unreleased recording of the mother of all rock’n’roll guitar. By David Fricke.

Future shock

Cultural upheaval and technological advances shake up West African emigrés. By David Hutcheon.

FILTER REISSUES

Broadcast ★★★★ Spell Blanket – Collected Demos 2006-2009

Various

★★★★★ Holland-Dozier-Holland Detroit 1969-1977 DEMON. CD/DL/LP Essential

Here’s Pete with the weather

Spontaneous jazz for all seasons.

Dawn Of Perception

Retrieved from music’s vault of the forgotten and slept-on, acid folk’s ground zero?

Curtis Mayfield

Taking nothing less than the supreme best.

My name is Earl

Breezy memoir from Bowie’s key guitarist.

FILTER BOOKS

Tom Lee/Arthur Russell Estate Destiny Stopped Screaming: The