MOJO July 2022

Kris Needs A wet smacker from David Bowie minutes after the unveiling of Ziggy Stardust at his local Aylesbury club remains one of Kris’s defining teenage moments (as recounted on page 76). Fifty years later, Kris is wrestling with three books, his DJing comeback and making his first solo album with some old friends. Will Hodgkinson Writing about recently unearthed, folky versions of Velvet Underground classics including Heroin and I’m Waiting For The Man from May ‘65 gave Will the shivers, and not in a drug-related way. His social history, In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop In ‘70s Britain, is published by Nine Eight Books in September. Nige Tassell A music writer for several decades, journalist and author Nige has spent the last few months travelling the country in search of indie musicians of yore for…

★ SPARKS ★ NEW YORK DOLLS ★ MICK RONSON ★ DANA GILLESPIE ★ SUZI QUATRO ★ HOLLYWOOD BRATS ZIGGY PLAYED GUITAARRRR – AND HE WASN’T THE only one. Since Bolan appeared bedecked in glitter in ’71, glam had been out of the bag, percolating and mutating in Britain and America. A big and flashy amalgam encompassing rock’n’roll guitars, decadence, spectacle, flamboyance, bubblegum, glamour, escape and, often, a thumping trucker’s beat, the church was a broad one. As well as such big hitters as Roxy Music, Sparks, Lou Reed, Slade, Sweet and Suzi Quatro, there was an underworld of influential prophets unacknowledged in their lifetime – hello, New York Dolls – and for obscuria-hungry bin-trawlers, the legions of spirited never-weres with goofy names, the hod carriers in lipstick whose output has been formalised as Junk Shop Glam. So…

Clare Grogan ALTERED IMAGES’ PRESENT-GIVER What music are you currently grooving to? I’m gigging quite a lot so we have a dressing room mixtape we get into the groove with. Grace Jones, Grandmaster Flash, The Tom Tom Club, Kraftwerk, Self Esteem, Lizzo – Doris Day always gets her moment. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? I consider running and music my go-to therapy. So you might spot me in the streets of north London bellowing to David Bowie’s Young Americans. I love the absolute epicness of the songs and the sentiment. What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it? I grew up in a household with three generations of music lovers, so there was always a fight to have your turn on the Dansette. When I…

THERE IS APPARENTLY A COCKTAIL called Tiger On Vaseline available in a London bar these days: a remodelled Piña Colada that, among other things, involves roasted pineapple juice. Perhaps you don’t have one to hand? No matter – a pint of milk will do just as well, as you’ll hopefully join us in raising a glass to one of our very finest. Auspicious birthdays demand auspicious celebrations, and that’s what we’ve tried to arrange for this special edition of MOJO to mark Ziggy Stardust turning 50. His conception date is a little hazy, as is the way of these things. But Ziggy was delivered in physical form to British record stores on June 16, 1972, precipitating a short life and epic afterlife that has resonated more than those of most real…

THE HOT NEWS AND BIZARRE STORIES FROM PLANET MOJO IF NEWS of Roxy Music’s first full reunion tour since 2011 came as a surprise to fans and music journalists, they weren’t the only ones. “I’ve been sort of locked down here in West Sussex, quite near to where Bryan [Ferry] is actually, ” relates Roxy guitarist Phil Manzanera. “I’ve been popping over, occasionally playing on some of his solo stuff – bits that he inevitably takes off… And one day, he just said, ‘Fancy doing some gigs?’ Whaaat?!” This was shortly before Christmas 2021, as the 50th anniversary of the band’s eponymous futuristic debut album loomed. “So yes, ” continues Manzanera, “if there’s a year to celebrate, this is it.” Manzanera talks to MOJO between shifts of woodshedding. Not in an actual shed –…

CELEBRATING 30 years of psychedelic, progressive indie rock, Idaho institution Built To Spill has been in a state of flux since long-serving sidemen Bret Netson and Jim Roth exited in 2015. And that’s the way singer/guitarist Doug Martsch likes it. “Playing with different people and making different kinds of records is what I want to do, ” he explains. “David Bowie was a hero of mine – every record of his was a completely different thing, with different collaborators. I want to follow in his footsteps.” Built To Spill’s forthcoming tenth album, When The Wind Forgets Your Name, is rooted in one of these periodic reshuffles. In autumn 2018, with the group’s first Brazilian tour on the horizon, Martsch swapped out his existing rhythm section to work with drummer Lê Almeida and…