MOJO June 2020

Dorian Lynskey Dorian writes for titles including The Guardian, Q, GQ and Billboard. From page 36 he chronicles Diana Ross’s epic reign as the Queen of Motown. As the author of The Ministry of Truth: A Biography Of George Orwell’s 1984, he was delighted to find an article that compared Berry Gordy to Big Brother. David Fricke For David Fricke, it was an annual rite of spring in New York: peakin’ at the Beacon with The Allman Brothers Band. He writes about the surviving members’ reunion on page 112. A contributor since MOJO’s inception, he also wrote for Rolling Stone for over four decades. He’s now back to his first love, radio, as DJ and interviewer at Sirius XM. Carne Griffiths Carne is an illustrator and exhibiting artist based in the UK and best known…

IN A POST ON HIS RED HAND FILES WEBSITE LAST SEPTEMBER, Nick Cave contemplated his “long and contentious career in the songwriter’s doghouse”. “Songwriting and poetry are perilous callings, full of intrigue and infidelity,” he explained. “They are covert undertakings that creep around our deepest and most hazardous needs. They are not for the squeamish or the eager to please.” For the past four decades, Cave has worked assiduously at this craft: vigorous in his imagery, unsparing in his honesty. The lack of compromise has not, though, limited the appeal of his songs, fraught personal endeavours that have still repeatedly tapped at a universal chord. Many of them have survived and flourished out there on their own, too – hence this compilation of 15 deathless Cave songs reinterpreted by 15 other…

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith MODULAR EXPLORER What music are you currently grooving to? Dogs On The Beach by Nobuo Uematsu – he did the music for Final Fantasy – which has been bringing me a lot of uplifting energy. Geinoh Yamashirogumi, who did the Akira soundtrack. I don’t watch anime but it has a lot of good music. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. When I‘m feeling stagnant it gets things flowing, and I have a lot of realisations and deep thoughts. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? Vanilla Ice’s To The Extreme. I was six or seven and my brother had took me to Tower Records in Encinitas. He was buying it, so I got…

MOJO welcomes letters for publication. Write to: MOJO Mail, Academic House, 24-28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DT. E-mail: mojoreaders@bauermedia.co.uk MOST SONGWRITERS WITH A HEFTY back catalogue have a lyric for every eventuality, and Nick Cave is no exception. “This is the time of our great undoing,” he sang in 1992’s Straight To You, a useful way of describing the uncanny days every one of us are living through right now. In extraordinary times, though, different kinds of ties and communities become more valuable than ever, and it’s our hope that the world of MOJO can provide distraction and consolation to all of you who’ve been so loyal to us for so long. We may have abandoned our Camden office for now, but essentially it’s business as usual. This issue was created…

“WE NEVER MADE a conscious decision to stop Genesis. We just mothballed it,” says guitarist/ bassist Mike Rutherford, on the matter of the British rock trio’s reunion tour of the UK and Ireland scheduled for this November. “Phil [Collins] came back to work [with his 2017-19 Not Dead Yet tour] and that made us think – maybe this is a possibility.” Today, MOJO meets the group behind the ’70s prog-rock touchstones Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and the ’80s pop hits Abacab and Invisible Touch, in a private club near London’s Goodge Street. Rutherford and keyboard player Tony Banks are brisk and breezy, poking fun at each other with the ease of men who first met as boarders at Charterhouse public school over five decades ago, while drummer/vocalist…

1 SCENES FROM A NIGHT’S DREAM (from …And Then There Were Three…, Charisma, 1978) This song is PROGRESSIVE POP. Genesis fans generally see this record as a low point – and I tend to agree. All the songs are like… three minutes? The band that birthed the fried 10-minute epic prog song has chopped out all the cool parts to make pop songs. Dudes… c’mon. However, this tune remains a standout. It sounds very confused and deeply psychedelic. Sounds like what could have been a fresh start for a decent record. 2 DUKE’S TRAVELS/DUKE’S END (from Duke, Charisma, 1980) It’s 1980 baby. Shit is WEIRD. Duke is definitely the high point of where the trio could take things. The stunning Duke’s Travels/Duke’s End – holy shit, redemption! It’s all instrumental and has all…