MOJO February 2022

Sylvie Simmons Sylvie likes Neil Young so much she wrote a book about him, Reflections In Broken Glass (2001), and renews their acquaintance from page 66. She’s also penned biographies of Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg. A Londoner, she lives a parallel life in California as a singer-songwriter – latest album: Blue On Blue (Compass). Pat Gilbert MOJO veteran Gilbert shouts Sex Pistols ‘Bingo!’ this month as he adds Paul Cook to previous encounters with John Lydon, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock (Sid Vicious hasn’t been available since Pat’s schooldays: pictured, left). Cookie’s refreshing angle on all things Pistols and beyond starts on page 32. Haus Of Lucy Our Lead Album illustrator is a multi-disciplinary artist who subverts the everyday and the banal, whether that’s adding an easyJet plane onto a 15th-century landscape or creating…

IT WOULD BE AN EXCEPTIONALLY BRAVE NEIL YOUNG FAN who tried to encapsulate their hero’s genius in 10 tracks. How do you honour both the relentless forward motion and the beloved constancy? What do you draw from six decades of prodigious music-making? The old and the new? The live jams and barnstormers? The uncontested classics and the undervalued deep cuts? Tough gig. Fortunately, MOJO had some useful assistance in compiling this month’s extremely collectable CD, in the shape of Neil Young and his team. With their considerable input, we’ve ended up with The MOJO Collection, a musical trip that begins in 2021, makes its circuitous way through highlights of the past 50-odd years, and ends up back in the present day, sending out signals from Young’s current base high in the…

Joan As Police Woman SMOKE ON THE WASSER What music are you currently grooving to? I’ve been listening to a song called Process by Samora Pinderhughes. I saw him play live recently, and he was just spectacular! I’m also listening to Damon Albarn’s new LP. And this record by Meshell Ndegeocello called Ventriloquism is really amazing. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? Fresh by Sly And The Family Stone. The production is insane, and the textures of sound are so interesting. I love it, it has everyone’s voices: women, men, black, white, American, British... it’s super free. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? I noticed the cover for Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Axis: Bold As Love at a Goodwill and bought it for a quarter.…

MOJO welcomes correspondence for publication. E-mail to: mojoreaders@bauermedia.co.uk LIKE A GOOD PARENT, THE EDITOR OF A music magazine probably shouldn’t ever reveal their favourites. Nevertheless, it’s always a pleasure to have Neil Young in the pages of MOJO, and this month’s new Neil interview articulates a major part of his appeal – as a restless musical adventurer alive to the possibilities of the old and the new. With Harvest reaching its 50th anniversary, Sylvie Simmons asks him about why he rejected the chance to revisit that record on a lucrative tour. “I’d rather do a new album with new musicians,” Young reasons. “You can’t recreate the past. If the past is preserved, you don’t have to recreate it.” Young, as well as any of his peers, understands the importance of preserving his old work…

THE HOT NEWS AND BIZARRE STORIES FROM PLANET MOJO SPORTING A beanie hat and looking a tad knackered, Pete Townshend has filmed a series of short video messages (posted to Instagram) from his studio to reveal that an edition of Who’s Next/Lifehouse is coming next year. “Three days working until five in the morning trying to keep up with some Who demos,” he explained, with a mock-maniacal laugh. “If I am looking a bit shattered, it’s because I am.” Pointing his camera at some of the instruments involved in the recordings – old organs, congas, a repaired ukulele – Townshend then redirected the focus onto a vintage eight-track machine that he’s had to augment with old Dolby noise-reduction units in what he described as an “unbelievably terrible lash-up”. As he scanned down some…

THE SMILE, Ted Hughes’ gnarly and mystical 1970 poem, appeared enigmatically on Thom Yorke’s Twitter feed on May 19, 2021, heralding the debut of a new group, also billed The Smile. Three days later, Yorke, Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and Sons Of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner duly appeared on the Glastonbury Festival Live At Worthy Farm livestream, playing eight varied and intriguing songs encompassing the spidery, Radiohead-like Panavision, The Smoke’s phantom Afro-funk, and the churning, Cure-esque goth-pop of We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings. After indie-punk maelstrom You Will Never Work In Television Again, Yorke felt an introduction was in order. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he declared with manic edge, “we are called The Smile. Not the smile as in ‘hahaha’... more the smile of the... the guy who lies to…