BOB DYLAN

14 HIDDEN GEMS FROM THE BOOTLEG SERIES 1963-1997

Theories, rants, etc.

MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication. Write to us

ALL BACK TO MY PLACE

THE STARS REVEAL THE SONIC DELIGHTS GUARANTEED TO GET THEM GOING...

Home Is The Hero

The Stranglers’ prime mover Jet Black left us on December 6.

FEBRUARY 1979 …Pretenders make their chart debut

Sob story: (clockwise from below) Pretenders (from left)

Who sang in other languages?

Getty (3) Let us answer your rock’n’roll questions

Lawrence and Felt

It started on the way to sign on the dole. And ended after 10 LPs and 10 45s in 10 years…

Nobody Ain’t Special

THE HOT NEWS AND BIZARRE STORIES FROM PLANET MOJO

…And Start Stomping

Four decades on, live ska movie Dance Craze returns.

PAUL SIMONON AND GALEN AYERS SING PAN-EUROPEAN HARMONIES… WITH DAMON ALBARN AND TONY VISCONTI

“It was really fun seeing Paul sing in

CANDI STATON

The soul legend talks Muscle Shoals, farewell tours and battling with the bottle

Paul Hartnoll

Orbital’s electric auteur gives the anarchist salute to Crass’s Penis Envy (Crass Records, 1981).

LONDON BREW: MILES DAVIS’ FUSION LANDMARK RE-IMAGINED (BUT WHERE DO WESTLIFE FIT IN?)

JUST BEFORE Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew reached its

STALWART PORTLAND INDIE FUNSTERS QUASI FIGHT BACK, AGAIN

Virtual reality: Quasi’s Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss

Bring Back The Prints

Collected! Jay Blakesberg’s all-film archive of the Dead, Stones and beyond!

THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH! LUCRECIA DALT’S SCI-FI BOLEROS FROM COLOMBIA

On the rocks: Lucrecia Dalt is thinking about

MELBOURNE’S GENA ROSE BRUCE MAKES HER COUNTRY DREAMS A YTI A

NEARING THE end of the writing process for

MOJO PLAYLIST

The month’s best US rock, Soviet synths and

White-bread b-boy turned mentor of legends, Rick Rubin’s road to all-round guru status is littered with platinum albums and (mostly) satisfied customers. Now he’s laid down his wisdom for the ages: “It’s the book I wish I’d had when I was 20.”

Tom Oldham, Shutterstock THE MOST SUCCESSFUL RECORD PRODUCER

“Songwriting Is An Attempt At Hypnosis”

So says John Colo, The Velvet Underground’s creator of radical atmospheres turned unique, unpredictable songsmith. With a new album, Mercy, awash with guests, he explores collaboration with Lou, Nico and John Cage, and the strange forces at work in his music. “Sometimes the mystery is what gets you through,” he tells Andrew Male. Portrait by Valerie Macon

Surfing a career high, poised to bring her West Coast AM goth-folk reveries to UK stages next month, WEYES BLOOD’s stately Natalie Mering digs into her Pentecostal parentage, noise-rock baby steps, and ponders her destiny. “Maybe there was something inevitable about all this,” she says to BOB MEHR.

WHEN NATALIE MERING WAS SIX YEARS OLD, SHE

BORN TO BOOGIE

With the searing sizzle of his guitar and the seismic rumble of his voice,JOHN LEE HOOKER's blues were shaped by his struggle to get paid - at least, until Carlos Santana and Keith Richards intervened. Through it all, over 70 years of music, he remained serious, hilarious, inimitable. “Never knew anybody like that guy,” acolytes tell DAVE DIMARTION

THE QUEEN OF HOOKS

FLEETWOOD MAC’s not-so-secret weapon held the group together through breakups and freakouts, ruptures and reinventions, blizzards of drugs and booze, until even she could take no more. But without her voice, her songs, and her sanity, they were only ever half the band. MARK BLAKE pays tribute to CHRISTINE McVIE.

"YOU'VE GOT TO REMEMBER WE WERE ALL VERY HIGH"

IN 2017 , CHRISTINE McVIE SAT WITH ANDREW MALE FOR THE MOJO INTERVIEW. HER WORDS ABOUT HER TIME IN ELEETWGDDMAC, AND ITS COST, WERE SOME OF THE MOST CANDID EVER UTTERED BY THE BAND

POP GLAM RULES THE CHARTS

From ’72 to ’74, The Sweet, Suzi Quatro and Mud had 16 Top 10 singles, including such stomping Number 1s as Can The Can, Block Buster! and Tiger Feet. The common thread? Songwriting/production power duo Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, AKA Chinnichap. But the hits couldn’t compensate for rivalry, fatal fame and personality clashes. “Amps were cranked up to 11,” muse the protagonists. “But Chapman and Chinn became bigger stars than their bands…”

SOuL MineR

The bewitching, fragile flame of SParKleHorSE was quenched in 2010 with the suicide of troubled mainman MArK LinKouS. As a new documentary graps the nettle of his life and unheard music emerges at last,friends and collaborators reflect an the magic at last,friends and collaborators reflect on the magic,the misery... and the mystery."What the fuck happened?" they ask Keith CAmeroN

NOT DARK YET

Time Out Of Mind was the album that rescued BOBDYLAN.Haunted by lost love, wracked by creative divisions, shadowed by health fears, it remade the blues for modern times. Delving into its mercurial session: Bootleg 17 sheds new light on its soul-baring songs, the "wrestling match" at its heart, and the magic of its motley band. "Bob wanted us to walk out on the wire together,'they tell GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN

Crass City Rocker

Nashville-based singer-songwriter’s new testament is an exercise in building hope out of chaos. By Victoria Segal. Illustration by Jon Langford.

“Everybody should try to be like Crass.”

Sunny War speaks to Victoria Segal.

Fool Hardy

Hoboken indie-rock perennials swap escapism for catharsis.

Eire Apparent

The mulleted twentysomethings setting Irish folk ablaze for the 21st century.

Joyful Noise

The Raincoats’ singer/bassist releases debut solo album of audacious sonics and witty lyrics

Superfly Weight

Five years on from their last album, Edinburgh trio continue to venture into the sonic unknown.

JAZZ

James Brandon Lewis ★★★★ Eye Of I ANTI-.

Mary Elizabeth Remington

Field recordings: Mary Elizabeth Remington goes elemental. ★★★★

UNDERGROUND

Daniel Bachman ★★★★ Almanac Behind THREE LOBED RECORDINGS.

Joe Henry

Joe Henry: ringing in the new year. ★★★★

AMERICANA

The Mother Hips ★★★★ When We Disappear BLUE

The Great Presenter

One of our finest pop creators hid in plain sight behind the image of a singing gentleman of leisure. But beneath the expensive tailoring lay a fiercely dedicated, eternally curious music lifer. By Jim Irvin.

We are not a muse

The complete works (so far), includes 15 albums, live shows, TV performances, 40 recovered orphans.

Thelonious Monk

★★★★★ Genius Of Modern Music: Volume One BLUE

Eternity ring

The be-robed laughter meditation guru’s 1978 debut, accompanied by three discs of early recordings.

New Order

Sub-culture club: nobody sounded like New Order in

Down the middle

In the 1960s, The Rolling Stones were exclusively one-track minded.

REISSUES EXTRA

De La Soul ★★★★★ 3 Feet High And

The Sound Of Muzik

This month’s slept-on selection: Cold War bubblegum for seditionary executives.

Mike Oldfield

The folk club child prodigy turned international long-form phenomenon.

Beyond The Cringe

Molecular research into every release on New Zealand’s groundbreaking indie label.

FILTER BOOKS

The Tastemaker: My Life With The Legends And