MOJO March 2019

Martin Aston Long-time MOJO writer Aston interviewed The Sugarcubes in 1987 after their debut single Birthday; further conversations in London, New York and Reykjavik led to a book on Björk. Starting on p58, he talks to band and associates as they recall the giddy rise and “tasteless, tacky pop” aims of Iceland’s first stars. Norman Seeff Legendary rock and movie photographer Seeff moved to LA in 1971, his subjects including Ray Charles, The Rolling Stones, and many more, like his sessions with Joni Mitchell (see pp62 and 76-81). “My fundamental approach is to not try and take photographs, but to create an authentic, honest relationship and document what unfolds,” he says. Sophie Marsham With over 25 years’ experience, Sophie is a sculptor and polymath with an eye for detail. From public art of over 6m…

ÒI’M CURSED BY ASTROLOGY TO BE DEEPER THAN THE average person, and also have the need to be original,” Joni Mitchell told a Canadian radio interviewer in 2013, on the eve of her 70th birthday. “To plant the flag where no one else has been.” Plenty of artists make such bold claims; few have the evidence to back them up. Joni Mitchell, though, has spent the music-making part of her creative life expanding on what it means to be a folk singer-songwriter, and a jazz musician, and even a pop star. In her wake, generation after generation of disparate artists have been inspired: from Wendy & Lisa to Brad Mehldau; from kd lang to Julia Holter, and beyond. It’s not always easy – in fact, it’s often rather ill-advised – to try…

James Petralli WHITE DENIM’S VOICE AND GUITAR What music are you currently grooving to? A lot of Turkish psych – Özdemir Erdoÿgan, and Erkin Koray. The melodies are super-long, they’ll extend over multiple bars. And the George Benson album Breezin’. A groove record, and amazingly smooth! What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? Aw man. The record I’ve listened to the most, probably, is Stevie Wonder’s Music Of My Mind. It kind of says it all. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? I’ve been lying about this for years, but I’m ready to tell the truth! It was Lose Control by this R&B vocal group Silk – the big single on it was Freak Me. I got it at the mall, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.…

IT HAS BEEN NEARLY 21 YEARS SINCE JONI Mitchell last appeared on the cover of MOJO, when she featured in a collage alongside Dr. John, Gene Clark, Prince, James Brown and Randy Newman for an “American Giants” issue. Inside, she talked of smoking with the King of Sweden and a reluctance to perform, and quoted Georgia O’Keeffe to explain how hard it was for her to be both a musician and a visual artist. Soon enough, her energies would be directed entirely towards painting, until an aneurysm in 2015 curtailed that creative outlet, too. Now, though, Mitchell is 75 and on the mend. As part of our extensive, long-overdue celebration of her genius, we bring promising news – via her long-time photographer, Norman Seeff – of Mitchell’s recovery. “There’s an incredibly…

“I HAVEN’T LISTENED to Buzzcocks records for years because I’m playing the songs every other day,” says the band’s Steve Diggle, eight days after his musical partner Pete Shelley died suddenly at home in Estonia. “But I had the radio on the day after Pete died, and there were six songs back to back, and it blew my fucking mind. It was like, we were good, as good as The Beatles or the Stones or anyone… When they were playing, I was going, Go on Pete, fucking give it some!” From Buzzcocks’ big-bang 1976 EP Spiral Scratch to the group’s last show in Belfast on August 25, 2018, Pete Shelley spent his life doing exactly that. A Number 12 hit in September 1978, his emotionally fraught punk-pop classic Ever Fallen In…

“IT ISN’T as dictatorial as before,” says Lias Saoudi, on the key difference between making the new Fat White Family album and its predecessor. “We tended to defer to Saul for every decision, but now we’re more open and collaborative.” “There was less narcotic psychosis going on, too,” says Saul Adamczewski, the other half of Fat Whites’ core duo. “It was a smoother process.” By the time their second album, Songs For Our Mothers, was released three years ago, Fat White Family had scattered, exhausted: Saul was out of the group, making his way out of addiction and planning his Insecure Men project, while Lias was working with Sheffield’s Moonlandingz on their dark-weird-pop debut. Yet even then, Fat Whites were getting back on track: Lias co-wrote the Insecure Men album, and his…