MOJO March 2020

James McNair James McNair has been a contributor to MOJO since 1994. Born in Glasgow, he moved to London in 1984 in search of the rock’n’roll dream. He didn’t find it. He now lives in Whitley Bay, where he is The Buddha Of Coastal Living. This month he channels The Black Crowes’ Steve Gorman on page 52. Mike Barnes Mike Barnes’s book A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & The 1970s is published by Omnibus in February, and on page 68 he chronicles the mid-decade difficulties facing some of prog’s big hitters and surveys the outerwear of their fans. He also enjoyed an audience with The Chocolate Watch Band’s Dave Aguilar (see page 130). Kevin McGivern Kevin is a professional illustrator from Glasgow, Scotland. Working primarily in portraiture, he has worked in the movie,…

FORTY YEARS ON FROM ATMOSPHERE, LOVE WILL TEAR Us Apart and Closer, it seems as if ominous, ferocious, emotionally brittle music, of a kind inspired by Joy Division, is having a moment again. This month’s meticulously-compiled MOJO CD showcases the post-punk class of 2020, 15 bands who have consciously or unconsciously absorbed the harsh lessons of Ian Curtis, his bandmates and their equally uncompromising contemporaries. A couple of those Joy Division peers turn up on Atmospheres: Factory labelmates A Certain Ratio, still pursuing their bony, abrasive take on funk, four decades down the line; the similarly resilient Wire, whose enduringly radical grasp of punk’s potential also continues to pay dividends. But the bulk of these artists were born a decade or two after Joy Division’s time - inheritors of a sound…

Jenny Lewis NICE AS FUCK What music are you currently grooving to? Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. What a great album. And Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters, Jim Sullivan’s U.F.O. and Frankie Reyes’ Boleros Valves Y Más, which also has a Guaraldi-esque feel to it. And Bob Dylan, who I listen to most – every year I find myself enjoying the music he created at the age I’m closest to, which is the Christian era, currently. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? The Cure’s Standing On A Beach? Revolver? 3 Feet High & Rising? Don’t make me choose, it could change. This year, Tyler, The Creator’s Igor. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? Pass The Dutchie by Musical Youth. They were kids, I…

ON THE FACE OF IT, THERE CAN BE FEW bands more different than Joy Division and Genesis. The first helped usher in a new era of spare aesthetics and emotional literacy; the second, all rococo complexity, epitomised the decadence that punk and post-punk were programmed to destroy. This month, though, MOJO finds an unlikely congruity between these contrasting musical giants. Forty years on from the completion of Closer , Stephen Morris remembers Joy Division listening back to their album for the first time. “We thought it was a fucking disaster,” admits Morris, with the rueful candour that makes his and his bandmates’ recollections so powerful. He recalls the snap judgment of Annik Honoré, companion of Ian Curtis. “It sounds,” she said, “like Genesis.” In 1980 Genesis were, to many, the apotheosis…

ON FEBRUARY 25, 2020, Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood hosts a tribute concert to the band’s founder member and former guitarist Peter Green at the London Palladium. The show, Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate The Music Of Peter Green And The Early Fleetwood Mac, in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust, will include performances by Fleetwood and Mac bandmate Christine McVie, David Gilmour, Steven Tyler, John Mayall, Billy Gibbons, Jonny Lang, Bill Wyman, Zak Starkey and Andy Fairweather Low, and will be overseen by the former Rolling Stones and Who producer, Glyn Johns. It’s understood that neither Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie nor their former guitarist Jeremy Spencer (who played in the band at the same time as Green) will attend. As MOJO went to press, there were unconfirmed rumours that…

AS HAS been the case since the ’90s, a spectre is haunting the ocean wave – that of bands playing gigs on cruise ships. Leaving from Florida and heading out to the Caribbean on massive liners, early 2020 alone boasted the Outlaw Country Cruise with Kris Kristofferson and Steve Earle, the Cayamo Cruise with Brian Wilson and Jeff Tweedy, and the 70000 Tons Of Metal hard rock jaunt, where you could catch Venom, Michael Schenker Group and Emperor while sitting in an on-deck hot tub. “It dawned on me – come on, this is brilliant.”JUSTIN HAYWARD A curious coincidence is on the horizon: The Moody Blues’ voice and guitar Justin Hayward and bassist John Lodge are also playing on board a luxury vessel – separately. Two years after they, and drummer Graeme…